Starting Tuesday, Russians will be able to order products from many well-known American and European brands including Nike, Zara and H&M online, according to an announcement by Russia’s postal service. Reported by state news agency TASS,
It will be possible to buy Western goods directly on the websites of companies using foreign or Russian bank cards. in the latter case, post globalA Hong Kong-based company posing as a partner of Russian Post has offered to buy products directly for an additional fee as a way of circumventing Western sanctions on Russian banks.
These purchases would be stored for three months at a German or American warehouse operated by Post Global before being shipped to Russia, where they would be delivered to “even the most remote areas” within a few weeks.
Post Global’s website invites Russian customers to “visit the most popular online stores in America and Europe”, where “millions of products, hundreds of thousands of brands and non-stop discounts await” [them],
These include anything from cosmetics, Lego sets and iPhones to auto parts, on which Russia’s car industry is heavily dependent.
Since the start of the war in February, hundreds of Western companies, including Nike and Swedish retail giant H&M, have shut down or closed operations in Russia. Various rounds of banking and trade sanctions imposed on Russia by the Western Bloc have made it increasingly difficult and often impossible for Russian consumers to access certain goods.
Nike, Zara, H&M and Lego could not immediately respond to a request for comment.