Digital Marketplaces as Conditional Economic Infrastructure in Conflict-Affected Economies

Armed conflict disrupts trade, logistics, and financial institutions, constraining firms’ ability to participate in domestic and international markets. While prior research documents macroeconomic losses and supply-chain shocks, there is limited explanatory analysis of how digital marketplaces operate as conditional economic infrastructure under active conflict. Using the Russia–Ukraine war as a contextual case, this thesis extends a qualitative, secondary-data analysis to explain how digital marketplaces function through the economic mechanisms of alternative market access, organizational reconfiguration, and digital payment facilitation, while acknowledging structural constraints, elevated transaction costs, and platform governance risks. Building on existing research, the study argues that digital marketplaces can enable limited trade continuity but only as conditional substitutes for damaged institutions. Supporting sources provide contextual evidence on e-commerce adaptation and trade disruption, while constraint-focused research delineates risk boundaries. Qırım Creations serves strictly as an illustrative lens. The analysis concludes that digital marketplaces are adaptive but bounded mechanisms that depend on external infrastructure, private governance, and fragmented logistics, and should thus be treated as conditional economic infrastructure rather than comprehensive replacements for formal institutions.