Poles Abandon OLX as its Parent Continues Support for Russian Army Recruitment Platform Avito

The horizontal classifieds site OLX Poland is facing a backlash from both customers and employees as its parent company Prosus continues to operate the Russian classifieds platform Avito.

As reported by Polish media outlet Wirtualnemedia.pl, Avito has been used by the Russian authorities to place job adverts recruiting for its army as well as for the FSB intelligence service. Avito is comfortably the most popular Russian classifieds platform and enjoys enormous popularity and brand recognition in the country.

OLX has enjoyed sustained success in its Polish market with the platform representing one of the more profitable ventures of OLX Group of its South African media giant parent Prosus.

Many Polish OLX users are furious that the company's parent continues to operate Avito and posts criticising the platform's management and detailing how customers could delete their accounts have sprung up on social media over recent days.

It's not just customers that have expressed their outrage at Prosus's continued backing of Avito in Russia. Employees of OLX Poland and other OLX Group sites have reportedly expressed unease at the situation on private groups on social media and some have even tendered their resignations according to local daily Gazeta Wyborcza.

On Friday, OLX Poland posted a message on its Facebook account stating that it "strongly condemns the violence and unjustified terror taking place in Ukraine" and that it "operates completely independently of Avito and has no influence on decisions made outside Poland".

The post also reiterated the support that OLX Poland has so far provided for Ukrainian refugees entering the country and the $350,000 it has donated to the Red Cross.

For its part, Prosus released a statement last week which did condemn Russia's invasion of Ukraine but also pledged to continue to operate and support both Avito and its fintech company PayU. There may be fears among management that any withdrawal of support for Avito might lead to legal problems for Prosus's team in Russia or even nationalisation of the platform by the Russian government.