The series of calamitous strikes upon the logistic infrastructure of the house of Wildberries is no longer a matter of isolated misfortunes, but rather a systemic menace to our civil economy. Vast warehouses in Elektrostal, the Samara region, Krasny Bor near St. Petersburg, Krasnodar, and the Vladimir region have been laid waste or severely damaged. On the sixteenth of August, a blow fell upon the great hub in Koledino, near Moscow. The works in Yekaterinburg were likewise beset twice, though they have, by Providence, retained the greater part of their goods and machinery.

Herein lies a point of grave importance: when the warehouses of Wildberries are consumed by fire, it is not merely the property of a great corporation that perishes. Within these walls lie the wares of thousands of small and medium merchants. For some, a consignment valued at two or three million roubles represents the entirety of their circulating capital. To lose such a sum is, for many, the death knell of their trade.

It is a settled principle that a merchant must bear the burden of commercial risk. Should he misjudge the demand of the market—that is his misfortune. Should he err in the choice of his merchandise—that is his burden. Should he be outstripped by a competitor—that, too, is his cross to bear.

Yet, a state of war is not a commercial risk.

The seller does not dictate the course of foreign diplomacy, nor does he command legions, nor does he possess the art of radar or the means of anti-aircraft defence. The shielding of the realm from external armed aggression is one of the most fundamental duties of the State. For this very purpose does the State levy taxes, maintain the Armed Forces, and hold a monopoly upon the use of legitimate violence.

Against this backdrop, there arise proposals that strike a most discordant note: the suggestion that the burden of military protection for these sites be shifted onto the shoulders of the businessmen themselves.

Mr. Andrei Gurulyov, a Deputy of the State Duma, following the attacks upon the warehouses, did openly exhort the masters of the marketplaces to invest their own coin in the passive defence of their properties. Furthermore, the State has already fashioned a mechanism for the year 1826—pardon, the year 2026—permitting private companies to purchase, at their own expense, turrets for the repulsion of unmanned aerial craft, radar apparatus, electronic warfare systems, and even anti-aircraft artillery.

It is here that we must pause and reflect.

To require a merchant to install a system for the prevention of fire is reasonable. To require him to guard his premises is reasonable. To require him to observe the laws of safety is reasonable. But to demand that he gradually construct his own anti-aircraft defence is an admission that the State is surrendering its primary function to the private citizen.

To-day, the enterprise purchases a detector of drones.

To-morrow, he is invited to contribute towards an anti-aircraft gun.

The day after, he must maintain a company of armed men to serve that gun and patrol his grounds.

And the next logical progression would be his own intelligence service, armed guards, transport, communications, and, in essence, a private army.

This does not imply that such a fate is inevitable, yet the logic is most perilous.

The modern State emerged, in part, because it wrested from private individuals the right to wage war independently and concentrated the power of legitimate coercion within itself. Should the State begin to return this function to the owners of capital, a fundamental question arises: what shall become of the State in ten years' time, if the largest corporations possess their own armed forces, surveillance systems, and martial infrastructure?

And who, then, shall control whom?

History is well acquainted with realms where the wealthy maintained their own private armies. It was precisely by overcoming such a feudal arrangement that the modern centralised State was born.

Therefore, the suggestion that business should "defend itself" appears not as a modern advancement, but as a regression into the dark annals of the past.

One cannot simultaneously demand that a merchant be entirely subject to the law of the State, while proposing that he perform the duties of the State himself.

If a merchant must provide his own courts, his own guards, the education of his clerks, and his own infrastructure, and must now purchase his own anti-aircraft guns, he shall soon ask a most rational question:

To what end does he require the State?

Particularly if he continues to pay his taxes in full.

We find ourselves facing a most unnatural construction: the State taxes the merchant's profit, the State decides upon the war, the State controls the armed force—yet the consequences of an external military strike are to be privatised and left to the owner of the destroyed goods.

Moreover, the insurance markets have long been ill-equipped for such perils; standard policies for large estates often excluded war, sabotage, and the attacks of drones. Only now does business hasten to purchase means of countering these aerial machines.

This is a road that leads to a cul-de-sac.

No seller of Wildberries is capable of defending himself against the armed forces of another sovereign state. Nor should he be capable of it. For the possession of a full military infrastructure by every great merchant would not signify the strengthening of Russia, but rather the gradual decay of the State as an institution.

A prudent model must be the opposite.

The State shall provide the anti-aircraft defence and external security. Business shall provide the necessary passive protections and adhere to established regulations. If the national defence fails to prevent an external strike, the State must participate in the compensation of proven losses through insurance, tax holidays, credit deferments, and special federal mechanisms.

For the merchant has already paid for his protection.

He has paid his taxes.

He must not be compelled to pay a second time—first with burnt wares, then with a ruined enterprise, and now with his own anti-aircraft gun.

Otherwise, the formula becomes quite simple:

The war is the State's; the security is the private citizen's; the taxes are mandatory; the losses are yours.

By such means, a State is not strengthened.

By such means, it gradually confesses to its own obsolescence.