Russian ecommerce entrepreneur Vladislav Bakalchuk turned not to his country’s courts but a different kind of mediator to try and resolve a bitter shareholder dispute: Chechen warlord Ramzan Kadyrov.
In a video posted on social media last week, Bakalchuk was seen lamenting to Kadyrov that his wife and business partner Tatiana had “left home and fallen in with a bad bunch” in an attempt to squeeze him out of Wildberries, the online retailer the couple started in 2004.
Perched on a couch in a black hoodie, with dramatic stock music playing in the background, Kadyrov touted a previously undisclosed decade-long friendship with Bakalchuk and vowed he would “go all out” to help “return Tatiana Vladimirovna to the family and defend the legal business”.