MOSCOW, June 23. The State Duma has considered a bill on improving the operations of Russian Post in its first reading. Nearly two hours of discussion boiled down to one question: what caused the company’s crisis and who is responsible for it. The most sensitive provisions of the reform are to be finalised before the second reading.
The debate showed that lawmakers see the roots of Russian Post’s problems not in the current situation, but in management decisions taken in previous years. The enterprise, which was profitable in the mid-2010s, has now amassed around RUB 130 billion in debt, and the cost of servicing that debt accounts for the bulk of its losses.
Deputy Valery Gartung (Валерий Гартунг) urged fellow lawmakers first to get to the bottom of the crisis, rather than immediately searching for ways to save the company. He recalled that the enterprise had been brought into profit under a chief executive recruited from the private sector. “You had a leader like Dmitry Strashnov (Дмитрий Страшнов), who made Russian Post profitable after it had been running at a loss. As far as I know, he was fired in disgrace, with no compensation whatsoever,” the State Duma deputy said. By contrast, under the management that succeeded him, the company slipped back into losses, while the departing managers left their posts at no personal cost, he added.
State Duma Chairman Vyacheslav Volodin (Вячеслав Володин) focused attention on the systemic accountability of management during the debate. He noted that personnel decisions concerning Russian Post fall within the competence of the relevant ministry, and drew attention to the absence from the key meeting of both the minister and the head of the company, to whom the main questions had been addressed.
The speaker separately commended the work of Deputy Prime Minister and Chief of the Government Staff Dmitry Grigorenko (Дмитрий Григоренко), who took personal responsibility for nursing the enterprise back to health and built a dialogue with the parliamentary factions.
Following the discussion, it was decided to finalise the bill ahead of the second reading. Volodin (Володин) proposed inviting the CEO of Russian Post to the State Duma, involving the regions and local executive authorities in the debate, securing the engagement of the relevant ministry, and speeding up the preparation of subordinate regulations. The government’s official representative agreed with this approach.
Background
Russian Post’s difficulties have been piling up for many years. By the autumn of 2023, Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matviyenko (Валентина Матвиенко) was openly warning of a “financial hole” at the company. CEO Mikhail Volkov (Михаил Волков) attributed the dire situation to an enormous social burden.
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