Amid the hysteria gripping the remnants of Crimean business, driven by the dismal conclusion of the “cold summer of 2026,” total logistical collapse, and a mounting “tax” burden, a new and noteworthy note has emerged.
Entrepreneurs on the peninsula, having grown accustomed to Russian online marketplaces in recent years, are now frantically seeking not only accessible warehouse space but also ways to place advertisements independently.
Given the dire state of the internet, electricity, and telecommunications, outdoor advertising media have become the most sought-after option.
While local businesspeople find that the “rent discounts on republican and municipal properties” previously promised by the occupiers are unavailable, since, as we have noted, these locations are controlled by entities linked to the “authorities” that offer them only for “subletting at market rates”, the situation regarding outdoor advertising has proven even more tragicomic.
As merchants put it: “In the past, there were private billboard owners, even as far as Simferopol, with whom one could negotiate; now, as we understand it, a single company has moved in, set ‘federal’ prices, and no one can afford outdoor advertising.”
Indeed, the peninsula’s prime advertising spaces are plastered with propaganda recruiting “cannon fodder” for the Russian army and similar “public service announcements,” or they broadcast the interests of Russian corporations.
The reasons behind this have proven quite remarkable. Back in late 2024, the “authorities” of Crimea and Sevastopol transferred key outdoor advertising assets via “auctions” to the “Vostok-Media” entity.
The new owner subsequently retrofitted a significant portion of these sites with “high-tech digital screens” and began demanding that businesses pay not only “premium market rates” for them but also commission the production of advertising spots from the same monopoly, at equally “lucrative” prices.
Notably, the primary “public face” of “Vostok-Media” in the occupied territories has been identified as Alexey Mitrushin, an official with the “Delovaya Rossiya” organization and co-chair of the Russia’s “Union of outdoor advertising operators”.
We have previously reported on the ties between “Delovaya Rossiya” and the Russian military and intelligence services; it is therefore unsurprising that “Vostok-Media” launched its vigorous “advertising operations”, directly linked to the aggressor’s propaganda, in occupied Donetsk and Luhansk well before 2022.
However, the actual beneficiaries of “Vostok-Media”, a company claiming offices in Donetsk and Sevastopol, a staff of 60, and “registration” in the latter city since October 2022, are quite different.
Nominally, its “general director” is Moscow resident Alexander Krotov, who also serves as the company’s “founder” through two shell companies: “Vostok”, based in Podolsk, and “TsVBP”, based in Moscow.
At the same time, however, Krotov has served since 2019 as the general director of the Moscow-based “Russ Media.” This company is controlled, via the Moscow-based “RVB” entity, by “Russ”, as the key Russian outdoor advertising operator, and the major Russian marketplace “Wildberries,” through the firm “Stinn.”
Thus, it is precisely the “Wildberries” operation, in which top Kremlin officials, including Putin’s chief of staff Anton Vaino, have been co-owners for years and through which they control the outdoor advertising market in occupied Crimea, Sevastopol, and Donetsk via the monopoly firm “Vostok-Media”, that lies at the heart of the matter.
This explains the current complaints from Crimean businesspeople regarding “federal” rather than commercial approaches to advertising rates, as well as some rather “interesting” details.
For instance, in Sevastopol alone, “Vostok-Media” advertising services were recently used to launder not only 1.7 million in “state funds”, channeled through the “City department of information policy” to promote military enlistment contracts for the aggressor’s army, but also 5.3 million in “budget funds” routed through “City Hospital No. 5.”
However, a more significant aspect of this situation is the absence of “Vostok-Media”, a company that serves Kremlin propaganda and the military machine far more than it does Crimean business, from sanctions lists; but we hope that this situation will change in the near future.
