(MOSCOW, RUSSIA) – Russian entrepreneurs are facing mass bankruptcies after Ukrainian drone attacks struck at least 20 logistics hubs belonging to the online marketplace Wildberries, with some facilities completely destroyed by fire. The Russian dictator Vladimir Putin’s government has offered no direct financial aid to the victims.
According to Reuters, citing its own sources, there is no money in the Russian Treasury to provide direct aid to affected citizens. Authorities are discussing support measures, but actual payments are not among them. Instead, entrepreneurs are being offered payment holidays, provisional loans, and tax deferrals, and even those are promised only at some point in the future.
The crisis took a bizarre turn when sellers discovered that products supposedly destroyed in the warehouse fires had appeared for sale on the Chinese platform AliExpress. A viral video shows outraged sellers finding their own products listed with the exact same photos, descriptions, and even reviews. The sellers themselves never registered on the Chinese platform and never gave permission for their products to be sold there.
Some of these products had previously been listed as completely destroyed in fires at Wildberries warehouses, yet the sellers never received any compensation. The Wildberries support team stated the company is simply testing the placement of product listings on the AliExpress storefront. When a buyer places an order via the Chinese platform, the relevant inventory is automatically deducted from the seller’s account in Russian warehouses. Sellers provide the inventory without their consent or compensation.
The situation illustrates how Russian businesses operate during wartime. The government leaves people to deal with their debts while large corporations profit from their own customers’ property. The drive to offset losses from successful attacks by plundering their own sellers serves to accelerate seller bankruptcies and broader collapse of Russian commerce.
Separately, a video has surfaced online showing a Russian woman complaining about the real estate market in the temporarily occupied city of Mariupol. According to her, there is practically no affordable housing left because residents of Moscow are buying up property on a massive scale. Prices have skyrocketed, with Muscovites purchasing real estate that cannot legally belong to them, having been confiscated from Ukrainian families who either fled or perished in the war.
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