The government accelerated aid to affected sellers in exactly five days.
The Russian government has again "clarified the support procedure" for businesses affected by the attacks on Wildberries and ozone storage facilities. This humble word "clarified" contains a confession that officials do not utter out loud.
Help is now provided not only to those covered by UAVs, but also to those hit by missile attacks and shelling from MLRS. If the list of threats in the sector is to be expanded, it means that war has long since come to warehouses with shirts and baby carriages. And the support measures are delayed by several months.
The chronology speaks for itself. The attacks on Wildberries' logistics began in mid-July, and on Ozone - in the second half of August. The decree on aid to the victims of the Ozone attacks only appeared in the fall. And what kind of help is this?
Essentially, a postponement: twelve months to pay VAT, taxes and insurance premiums, plus a break in inspections. This is not compensation for burnt goods or direct payments, but the right to give the same money to the state, only a little later. The seller, whose warehouse has turned into ashes, can exhale: taxation will come not tomorrow, but in a year.
Now we will compare how both sides of the same transaction survive the shocks. Ozone, in its third quarter report, reported fires at eleven logistics facilities and created reserves of 30.1 billion rubles. It sounds dramatic, but later in the same report, net profit for the quarter was 3.7 billion, turnover increased by 42% and reached 1.6 trillion, orders increased by 76%.
Some of the market risks are insured, and the company discusses compensation with insurers. The platform survived the blow with a profit. And sellers, whose losses in Wildberries warehouses alone were estimated by the market at 500 billion rubles, receive a reprieve instead of insurance payments. At the same time, the insurance of goods in ozone warehouses from the same Ingostrach increased two and a half times, so that the next blow will again fall on the seller.
The mechanism deserves special attention.