International Courant
When Zoya, a 62-year-old Moscow resident, deliberate a visit to Italy to go to her daughter final August, she noticed the proper alternative to purchase the Apple Watch she had lengthy dreamed of proudly owning.
Formally, Apple doesn’t promote its merchandise in Russia.
The California-based tech big was one of many first corporations to announce it was leaving the nation in response to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
However the week earlier than her journey, Zoya made a shocking discovery whereas browsing Yandex.Market, one of many many Russian solutions to Amazon, the place she frequently retailers.
Not solely was the Apple Watch on the market on the web site, it was additionally cheaper than in Italy.
Zoya purchased the watch and not using a second’s delay.
The serial code on the watch delivered to her dwelling confirmed that it was manufactured by Apple in 2022 and supposed on the market in the USA.
“Within the retailer they defined to me that these are real Apple merchandise that enter Russia by means of parallel imports,” Zoya, who requested to be recognized solely by her first identify, instructed Al Jazeera.
“I assumed it was a lot simpler to purchase on-line than to search for a retailer in an unknown nation.”
Practically 1,400 corporations, together with most of the most internationally recognizable manufacturers, have introduced since February 2022 that they’d stop or cut back their operations in Russia in protest towards Moscow’s army aggression towards Ukraine.
However two years after the invasion, many of those corporations’ merchandise are nonetheless extensively bought in Russia, in lots of instances in violation of Western-led sanctions, a months-long investigation by Al Jazeera has discovered.
Aided by the Russian authorities’s legalization of parallel imports, Russian corporations have established a community of other provide chains to import restricted items by means of third international locations.
The businesses that make the merchandise have been unwilling or unable to sort out these unofficial distribution networks.
Parallel economic system: how Russia defies the West’s boycott | Conflict between Russia and Ukraine
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