The move, which AliExpress Russia hopes will help it cut the time it takes to deliver orders from China to Russia to 10 days, comes with Russia's rapidly growing e-commerce market producing an annual turnover of more than $14 billion.

Alibaba's Cainiao logistics operator is renting 7 cargo planes from Pochta Russia and Aviastar-Tu to fly to the cities of Moscow, Yekaterinburg and Krasnoyarsk on a daily basis.

In October, Russian internet company Mail.Ru said it had agreed a joint venture with Alipay, the mobile payments arm of Alibaba Group, along with the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) and two other Russian partners.

(Reporting by Anton Zverev, Nadezhda Tsydenova; writing by Tom Balmforth; editing by Jason Neely)