Avon keeps doing business in Russia despite war in Ukraine

Beauty giant Avon, which specializes in cosmetics sales and operates in over 140 countries, has come under fire for maintaining links with Russia despite the Kremlin’s ongoing war in Ukraine.

That’s according to the BBC, Ukrinform reports.

At Russia went for a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Avon said it was stopping investment and suspending exports of its beauty items from Russia to other markets, including Ukraine.

The BBC, however, has discovered Avon keeps recruiting new sales agents in the country and continuing production in a huge plant in the Moscow region.

The company says it provides "critical support" for women whose livelihoods depend on their business.

"We believe restricting their access to products would have an outsize impact on women and children there," it stated.

Steven Tian, part of a team of researchers at Yale University who track what companies have done in response to the Ukraine war, said the company should be "ashamed" for continuing to do business in Russia.

"There is no excuse for continuing to fund Putin's war machine... and [there] has been more than enough time to allow for companies to exit in an orderly way," he said.

As Ukrinform reported earlier, the annual list of 50 largest companies operating in the Russian market has almost halved, to just 22, after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.