Russia’s small businesses left out in the cold by Covid-19

Small and medium-sized businesses such as Denis’s are trapped in the space between. For the whole of April they were forced by president Vladimir Putin to pay salaries to employees while also suspending their operations. Now they are subject to almost daily changes to local rules governing how they can operate, while waiting for state financial grants that pale in comparison with those offered in western countries. “We have got no loan vacations, no handouts,” Denis said, noting that Russia’s government has put companies such as McDonald’s on a list of entities which have been given permission to keep operating, but not enterprises such as his.