Moscow Plans to Extend to the Postal System the Same ‘Last Mile’ Approach It has Employed against Internet Providers, Yakovlev Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 16 – Moscow has sought to establish control over “the last mile” approach as far as digital traffic on the Internet is concerned. Now, Denis Yakovlev says, it is planning to “extend this very same model into the realm of the delivery of physical goods”  by making Russian Post “the gateway for the consumption” of mail.

            This plan, the Most Media commentator says, will not only have an impact on the delivery market alone but will impose state control over everyday life in ways that are “quiet and imperceptible” but extraordinarily radical (https://mostmedia.org/ru/posts/bitva-za-poslednjuju-milju-rossyskaja-vlast-beret-pod-kontrol-rynok-pochtovyh-uslug-po-toi-zhe-modeli-chto-i-internet).

            The Russian Ministry for Digital Development has proposed legislation that will require all private delivery services to contract with and use Russian Post for the delivery of packages to consumers’ homes, the so-called “last mile” in the network between suppliers and consumers, he says, thus giving the state new control over much of Russian life.

            If this bill is approved, and it almost certainly will be, “all private marketplaces will be forced to operate through this channel and, according to the provisions of the measure, have to pay for the privilege,” something that in the short term may save the troubled government postal service but in the longer term will restrict the rights and freedoms of Russians still further.

            “Massive, unwieldy and in a perpetual state of reform,” and now bleeding employees at an unprecedented level because of low pay and poor working conditions, “the Russian Post on paper is the country’s largest logistics network with nearly 40,000 branches, of which 27,000 are in remote rural settlements,” the commentator says.

            According to Yakovlev, “rescuing the floundering Russian Post could result in the demise of almost the entire fleet” of private delivery services and thus “drive a vibrant, competitive market into an inefficient and crumbling state-run infrastructure” that would ensure central control but not good service.

            At the present time, he continues, “Russia’s delivery service market operates on two levels: the urban one that is largely controlled” by private firms “and the rural one which is dominated by Russian Post through its network of post offices. What makes sense for cities is very different from what makes sense for rural areas.

            If large numbers of private firms leave the delivery business rather than pay the high charges the government wants them to give to Russian Post, the entire system will slow down, but Moscow will gain near total control over the delivery of physical goods just as it is trying to do with regard to digital information on line.