As of fall 2025, the invasion of Ukraine is in its fourth year. In the stores of the Russian chain Tvoe, there is an advertisement: “Zara, Stradivarius and Bershka are on the shelves of Tvoe, but if you don’t tell Nadie, it’s a secret.” Inditex, owner of these brands, abandoned this market in 2022, months after the Kremlin launched its war. However, some gifts from the Spanish company, like those from other Western companies, continue to reach Russian consumers. A few drops, more expensive and with reduced variety, but I arrive by other means.
Inditex is not the only Western company whose products are sold in Russia. It’s easy to buy items from H&M, Hugo Boss, Marks & Spencer, Sephora, Apple and other brands online and in some stores in major cities. The main reason is that smuggling is legal in Russia. Vladimir Putin legalized it by decree a month after the start of the war under the euphemism of “parallel imports” to soften the impact of the company’s flight.
“Inditex no longer has any activity in Russia since the sale of its activity,” they note in these periodic company sources. Before the war, the multinational had 502 stores and the country accounted for 8.5% of its total profit before tax (EBIT). Today, the variety of Inditex gifts on the Russian market is noticeably smaller than four years ago and they often seem like leftovers.
Some Telegram fashion channels have been tested with the TV promotion, available only in physical stores and not on their website. “The gifts are crumpled and held together with a lot of tension, it looks more like a flea market than a large Inditex warehouse. Nadie hoped that the return of Zara would happen like that,” opines on the Fashion Retail channel. In addition, winter is at its peak and, according to your observations, the collection is part of the new Zara summer and 2024 collections.
The Tvoe brand is part of the Russki Trikotazh holding. According to the Russian daily Vedomosti, the founder of this conglomerate replaced its Cypriot owner with a company from the United Arab Emirates at the start of the sanctions “to guarantee the fluidity of operations with foreign partners”.
When the Kremlin authorized smuggling and many Western companies were founded, exports of foreign products grew in Russia at the same pace as they spread to other countries such as Kazakhstan, Armenia, Turkey and even Belarus, which is less sanctioned. Quite simply, certain minorities got out thanks to third parties.
“Inditex has no comment on current or potential industrial property concerns, nor on third parties who have no connection with our group and who may market our brand products in markets where we are not present,” respond the company’s managers regarding this situation.
Added to this scenario is the appearance of several declarations of conformity on Inditex products after its launch. This is a document issued by a Russian organization that believes the product complies with Eurasian Economic Union (CIS) regulations. Sometimes it is voluntary and can present both the dueño of the brand and the final distributor.
For example, in March 2024, a batch of 2,987 point gifts for preschoolers certified by the Apeks company. The 18 statements presented by the Russian company Disco Club LLC in September this year with Inditex as supplier, according to what was regularly published in the diary Financial Times.
“In these cases, the distributor may have been solicited,” a well-informed source from the Spanish CIS market explains to this newspaper, who adds that to request the declaration “it is necessary to present documents from the trademark owner, which is why these have been falsified or there has been some collusion on the part of the company.”
This hypothesis, however, seems unlikely. “It seems very rare to me that Inditex has anything to do with it, because of the reputational cost it could have in exchange for selling four gifts in a chain that is not dirty,” adds this source. “The distributor might have falsified documents, you know what happens in Russia, which also operates in another country, like Kazajistan, and approved all the certificates,” he added.
A member of the Spanish company responded to this newspaper that Inditex “has not asked anyone for a declaration of conformity in this market since its launch and has not authorized anyone to do so on its behalf”.
The dilemma of returning to Russia
At the end of August, Inditex renewed the registration of the Zara brand and its logo with the Russian intellectual property agency Rospatent. Also known as the Japanese company Fast Retailing with Uniqlo. This is a common practice in all multinationals.
“Inditex works continuously to keep our trademark registrations up to date around the world, including markets where we do not have a commercial presence,” group sources explain.
In any case, a hypothetical return could prove complicated. This year, Vladimir Putin ordered the development of a set of criteria for vetoing or allowing the return of foreign companies that have abandoned the Russian market. Besides Russian pride, one of the biggest concerns for local businesses is that they will be held back by the flight of internationally renowned brands.
According to a study by the Center for Strategic Research, one in four companies, such as Amazon, PayPal or McDonald’s, could have banned their return because of the “aggressive way” in which they demonstrated at the start of the war. Second think tankcausing problems for its partners and customers. However, other businesses may have an easier time coming back because they operate in a “friendlier” manner.
McDonald’s, for example, is on the red list. Like other companies, it sold its business to a Russian partner at a discounted price, with the possibility of buying it back later. However, the new brand Vkusno & tochka (“Sabroso et punto”, in Castellano) was established after these years of war and could be one of the companies helped by the Kremlin so that their old duños do not return.
In the case of Inditex, the Spanish company suspended its activity in March 2022 and negotiated with the Daher group, its Lebanese partner in the Middle East, the sale of its activities in Russia. The operation was completed in October of the same year with the agreement of the Russian authorities. According to company sources, the agreement envisages “the possibility of future collaboration between the two through a franchise agreement” if the situation in Russia changes and returns to its brands.
When fashion companies left Russia, they sold their operations to companies that kept their stores, employees and suppliers. The Levi’s brand was replaced by the JNS chain and Zara by Maag, for example, and its designs are made in the same factories. This makes their gifts sometimes look the same.
The Spanish giants explain that in the textile industry “it is common for manufacturers to simultaneously produce items for different brands”, but emphasize that the products created by their 700 designers are completely exclusive.
Added to this skill is the appearance of clones of international brands. In the case of Zara, this is the Zarina company. It belongs to the local Melon Fashion Group (MFG), recently bought by oligarch Iván Tavrin, one of the biggest beneficiaries of the Kremlin’s confiscations of foreign companies.
This society fears the return of Western firms. Although it is one of the largest in selling cheap clothing on Russian online platforms, and has part of its shareholding in Cyprus, where Inditex is present, it announced a restructuring “before the possible appearance of strong niche brands on the market”.
The threat of big fashion companies to Russian companies, even cooler, is now reputational damage. O’stin, another Russian company that tried to cover the gamut of Western brands, decided to close its Face Code brand after failing in its attempt to imitate Pull & Bear, Bershka and Stradivarius. Its social networks, a year after its launch, had only 4,000 subscribers.
In any case, a hypothetical return of Western companies to Russia seems very slow today. On the one hand, the reputational cost of doing business in a country whose invasion of Ukraine caused thousands of deaths is obvious. On the other hand, we must not forget the risk of a reversal of a regime which has confiscated more than 400 companies, including several Western ones, since the outbreak of the war.
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