An Ugly Divorce, Russia’s Richest Woman and a Deadly Shooting in Moscow

He came with armed men he called “colleagues.” She stationed guards in the lobby of her billion-dollar business.

Their divorce, and their dispute over the fate of Russia’s biggest online retailer, appeared to escalate into a full-blown shootout in downtown Moscow on Wednesday, leaving two dead, five injured and dozens detained just across from the Kremlin.

The dispute between the couple, Tatyana and Vladislav Bakalchuk, has been at the center of Russia’s business world for months, even drawing the involvement of the strongman leader of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov. At stake is not only a marriage but the future of the company Ms. Bakalchuk founded, Wildberries, a marketplace that processes more than 12 million orders every day and had sales that neared $27 billion in 2023, according to Ms. Bakalchuk and Tass, a state news agency.

The shooting took place just opposite the Kremlin, in the lobby of one of the most prestigious office buildings in Moscow, according to a video from the scene that was published by state news agencies. The video showed burly men bickering, with at least one of them brandishing and then shooting a gun.

Mr. Bakalchuk told RBC, a Russian business news outlet, that he had arrived at the offices on Wednesday with “colleagues” to conduct “peaceful negotiations” about the construction of new warehouses.

“But at the entrance I was attacked by security guards,” said Mr. Bakalchuk, who has a small stake in the company. He added that one of his associates was wounded in the skirmish.