Online Sales Of Armenian Goods Halted In Russia

Some Armenian entrepreneurs using the Wilberries and Ozon online marketplaces were the first to report the disruption on Friday morning. Both Russian firms implicitly confirmed it later in the day, citing new customs rules and procedures introduced in Russia late last month. They also said they continue selling goods already imported from Armenia and stored in their Russian warehouses.

“In order to comply with the new requirements, additional documents necessary within the updated procedures have been requested from sellers,” Wilberries said in a statement.

The company said its representatives in Armenian have met with over 50 local exporters to discuss “possible solutions” to the problem.

Armenia last year exported almost $3 billion worth of goods to Russia, its leading trading partner. It is not known what percentage of them was sold through Wildberries and Ozon.

Earlier this week, Russian authorities suspended on sanitary grounds sales of Armenia’s most famous brand of mineral water. Officials in Moscow said more than 1.3 million bottles of the water produced by Armenia’s Jermuk Group will be taken off the Russian market pending an ongoing inspection of its quality.

Jermuk Group has still not commented on the ban that came about one month after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s stern warnings to Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian issued during their most recent meeting at the Kremlin. Putin indicated, in particular, that Armenia will lose its tariff-free access to the Russian market and a significant discount on the price of Russian natural gas if Pashinian’s government keeps seeking membership of the European Union.

Pashinian downplayed the ban on Jermuk on Thursday, saying that “such issues arise and are resolved from time to time.” His economy minister, Gevorg Papoyan, likewise insisted on Friday that it is not politically motivated.

“I have no doubts that the Jermuk problem will be solved and we will continue exporting millions of bottles of Jermuk,” he told reporters.

Papoyan seemed more concerned when he commented on the actions of the Russian e-commerce leaders a few hours later. He blamed two unnamed Armenian opposition groups for the suspension of the online sales of Armenian goods in Russia.

“You have achieved this after spending months writing reports against Armenia to officials of other countries; we will solve the issue soon,” Papoyan wrote on Facebook. “Those who write false denunciations about Armenia and Armenian producers in foreign countries have no place in the political life of Armenia.”

The minister offered no proof of his allegation or elaborate on it otherwise.

Putin also warned Pashinian on April 1 against disqualifying pro-Russian opposition groups or politicians from running in Armenia’s upcoming parliamentary elections. The Armenian authorities raised opposition fears of such bans late last year after implicitly alleging Russian “hybrid” threats to the integrity of the electoral process and asking the EU to send a special mission to Yerevan for the June 7 vote.

A similar EU mission was deployed in Moldova ahead of parliamentary elections held there last September. Two Moldovan opposition parties deemed pro-Russian were disqualified from the vote won by the former Soviet republic’s pro-Western leadership.

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