The owners and employees of Shebekino enterprises told RBC about working under shelling, arriving at plants and factories, litigation over force majeure, and how to pay salaries without access to their own accounting.
Shebekino and the nearby villages of the Belgorod region have been under massive shelling from Ukraine for more than a week. There are many enterprises in the city, but entry is closed there, there is no electricity and water, the work of factories has been stopped, employees have been evacuated.
“They shoot – we hide in a shelter, stop shooting – we continue to work”
Shebekinsky district is one of the main industrial centers of the Belgorod region. There are located not only local production, but also reserve sites of Belgorod enterprises (the city is located 30 km from Belgorod), as well as federal companies. For example, one of the production facilities of the SI Group company is located in the district, which produces Shebekinsky pasta, the plant for the production of artificial sapphires Monocrystal, the Shebekinsky machine-building plant, the plant for the production of resins and additives for building paints of the Allnex company and others. .
There is still no exact data on how many enterprises in Shebekino suffered from shelling, how much and what damage they suffered: the city is constantly shelled, and there is no way to make an assessment. On June 2, Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov reported on ten affected enterprises and specified that 13 billion rubles would be needed to restore them. Already on June 5, he noted that “offhand” funds for the restoration of the affected areas from the formed fund would not be enough, without specifying whether the restoration of enterprises was also meant.
An employee of the Shebekinsky chalk plant told RBC that the enterprise worked until May 31, then it was stopped. “I was supposed to leave on May 31 for a day shift, but we didn’t leave. On the night of June 2, I had a night shift, but they called me and said that the plant was stopped. Whether the salary will remain, how it will be formalized, I don’t know, ”she says.
An employee of the Belgorod plant of sapphires “Monocrystal” reported that the plant also stopped working after May 31. “During the last shelling, on May 31, which was especially powerful, we were in the basement. The shelling lasted an hour, from “Gradov”. We were evacuated by the administration after the shelling. After that, as far as I know, there were more arrivals, and I can’t say if there was anything left of the plant, ”says the woman. According to her, the plant’s employees have been working under shelling since September: “They shoot – we hide in a shelter, stop shooting – we continue to work.”
The Radom furniture factory was damaged, its employee told RBC: “It flew into our Radom, where my husband and I worked. First they saw it on social networks, they started calling (with colleagues), they confirmed to us that it was true.”
Several residents of Shebekino told RBC that Premix Plant No. 1, which produced a lysine additive for animal feed, was badly damaged.
“Factories? They don’t exist,” Natalya, a resident of Shebekino, laconically answered RBC’s question. – It was probably from Belgorod to see how they burned (meaning Premix Plant No. 1 and Monocrystal. – RBC). On Wednesday (May 31) they finished off “Premixes”.
RBC sent inquiries to the management of the largest plants located in the Shebekinsky urban district. Several people declined to comment, the rest did not respond.
Medium and small businesses suffered from shelling. The individual entrepreneur Vitaly Nemertsev had his own production and sale of furniture. The property has two stores, one of which, with an area of 900 sq. m, rented out, warehouses and other assets. “The warehouse with upholstered furniture shattered, a small warehouse with all sorts of small things also shattered. The glass in the stores was broken. “Gazelle”, which was on the delivery of furniture, helped somehow pull it out, I took it. It’s all like a sieve – the Grad flew in, it was all cut with fragments, ”Nemertsev told RBC.
Employees employed in Shebekino were transferred to work at the second point of the entrepreneur in Belgorod. They had to cut their wages, he admits, but at least people stayed with their jobs.
A similar situation is with the Inbitek company, which produces rolled metal products and metal products. In Shebekino, she has an industrial enterprise for the production of metal structures and a retail and office building in the city center. “According to the state of the workshop, I was there last Friday, an arrival was recorded, the walls were pierced by a shell. Whether it burst inside or not, I don’t know, we didn’t go inside. But they didn’t notice the fire, ”Igor Chernov, head of the company, told RBC.
Employees of Inbitek, who worked in Shebekino, are now on paid leave. As Chernov explained, they were evacuated in an organized manner during the shelling and taken to a safe place. Almost all were accommodated with relatives, for someone they agreed on apartments, they helped in any way they could, the entrepreneur specified.
While the company’s management is looking at how events will develop, but if the shelling drags on, Inbitek will look for a temporary site in order to return employees to work.
Neither Nemertsev nor Chernov managed to take out practically anything from the enterprises, with the exception of some documents. This problem is also faced by other Shebekin entrepreneurs, so the business, together with the district administration, has developed a scheme for the export of small items. Heads of companies need to draw up an application for export, submit it to the district administration, after which it will be approved and the data will be transferred to the checkpoint at the entrance to the closed zone. So far, only small things can be taken out – safes, servers, seals, documents that can enter a car like a Gazelle. Almost all interlocutors of RBC explain that the territory of the Shebekinsky District is constantly monitored by drones, in addition, shelling can begin at any moment. Therefore, it is necessary to move very quickly and it is impossible to linger for a long time, including for loading a large car.
Due to shelling, work is stopped not only by Shebekino enterprises, but also those located in other areas, in particular closer to Belgorod. Viktor Koshchavka, an employee of Razumensky Market LLC, located in the Razumnoe urban-type settlement (10 km from Belgorod), told RBC that his company was building the second stage of the Ambar shopping complex. However, in May, against the backdrop of shelling, the company decided to freeze the construction site. “The first stage has already been built, now the second stage is under construction. The skeleton of the frame was raised, but they did not begin to sheathe it any further, because it was unsafe. So that it doesn’t happen that a building was built, and it was smashed, as in Shebekino, ”Koshchavka explained.
According to him, the first month the employees were on paid leave. “And now force majeure, and everyone understands this. And the owners do not receive money, and we do not, everything costs until better times, ”added the interlocutor of RBC.
Will there be financial support for enterprises
So far, there are no official statements about how the region will financially help enterprises recover. The entrepreneurs with whom RBC spoke explain that the damage assessment procedure cannot now be started due to constant shelling – at least there is no way to bring an appraiser to production. “Probably, there will be some compensation, but no one knows what, when and in what amount,” Chernov explained.
The authorities provided subsidies in the form of grants to enterprises that suffered in previous waves of shelling (they were carried out in the Shebekinsky district and other areas since the fall of 2022, but were weaker). Grant applications began to be accepted on April 26. It could be submitted by legal entities, individual entrepreneurs, individuals and self-employed (if they are not in the process of liquidation or bankruptcy, and are not foreign). The money could be spent on the construction of buildings, rent, current or major repairs, equipment repairs, the purchase of raw materials or necessary goods, technological connection to engineering infrastructure facilities, and utility bills.
By May 10, the first recipients of grants were identified. They were 28 enterprises and 18 individual entrepreneurs, and the total amount of subsidies for them amounted to 397 million rubles.
“People are already running to the courts to sue those in distress”
In addition to material damage and a forced stoppage of production, Shebekino enterprises will face many other problems, Sergey Lisov, co-chairman of the Delovaya Rossiya branch in the Belgorod region, is sure. “We expect that there will be a large number of outstanding contracts for which prepayments have already been made, respectively, the courts will be inundated with lawsuits filed by counterparties,” he explained to RBC.
Chernov agrees with him. “We still have imported material in the workshop, that is, obligations to suppliers. We still have unloaded finished products, that is, obligations to the buyer. We still have equipment, that is, obligations to the lessor and the equipment supplier,” he explained. – For example, we were supposed to ship the structures on Friday, and on Thursday this mess began. And that’s it. And they have a technological cycle of equipment. We sit and think together how to get out of this situation.”
The head of Inbitek emphasizes that due to the fact that a special regime has not been introduced in the district (by analogy with the CTO regime, which was introduced in the Graivoronsky district on May 23 after the breakthrough of saboteurs and removed on the same day), obligations under contracts are not suspended. “People are running to the courts to sue those in distress because they want to be the first to rip off some leftover meat if there is anything left of the company,” he explains.
According to Lisov, on Wednesday, June 7, a meeting was held between representatives of the regional Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCI), the Ministry of Economic Development of the region, the Belgorod branch of Delovaya Rossiya and business. “It was decided to create a register of affected enterprises, including those who, due to shelling, do not have access to production sites and offices. Companies included in the register will be able to obtain force majeure certificates. They will be able to use this certificate in court, so that if a lawsuit is filed against them, they will have the opportunity to use the force majeure clause in contracts with counterparties,” he said.
Now, in order to obtain such a certificate at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, documents from the authorities, the Investigative Committee or the Ministry of Emergency Situations are required, which would confirm the circumstances of the occurrence of force majeure. If a register is created, it will become much easier to prove the occurrence of a force majeure circumstance, the co-chairman of Delovaya Rossiya in the region specifies.
Registration of such a certificate in the Chamber of Commerce and Industry costs 13.5 thousand rubles. “We proposed to give an installment plan for three months to those entrepreneurs who cannot now fully pay for the procedure. The CCI supported this idea,” Lisov added.
Due to shelling, many enterprises do not have access to accounting, servers where information is stored, including on the payroll of employees. “If the shelling drags on or the enterprise is destroyed, the employer will not be able to pay salaries, and non-payment of salaries for three months is the basis for filing an application for bankruptcy against the enterprise. We will just get a lot of bankrupt enterprises, instead of giving them the opportunity to recover,” he explains.
The regional branch of Delovaya Rossiya sent a letter to the organization’s chairman Alexei Repik with a request to consider the possibility of introducing a temporary moratorium on the bankruptcy of affected enterprises and on criminal liability for late payment of salaries. In addition, businessmen proposed to temporarily allow enterprises not to make contributions to social funds if they are unable to make these payments. As Lisov explained, business considers it necessary to introduce measures similar to those that were in effect during the COVID-19 pandemic.
