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From Факел Новороссии 2023 by Pavel Gubarev:

Дальше нам очень важно начать повсеместно обновление систем жизнеобеспечения, ЖКХ. Всё дело в том, что они достались нам в наследство от Советского Союза и за двадцать три года мы туда ровным счётом ничего не вложили… На данный момент они ��зношены до 95 процентов. В этой сфере прошлая власть потерпела полный провал. Инвестиции в эту сферу были нулевыми, даже отрицательными, так как происходило систематическое крупное разворовывание коммунального сектора через систему так называемых «прокладок» – частных компаний, в пользу которых собиралась квартплата и другие платежи. До ЖЭКов деньги практически не доходили.

Прокладка should be some kind of filling or padding. Could it mean "a middle-man" here, a kind of intermediary that siphons off the money?

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Yes, прокладка ('gasket') is often informally used to mean 'intermediary', 'middleman' when talking about companies.

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    In English, the closest word is middleman, especially in the negative context. Commented 2 days ago
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English Wiktionary has the meaning you're looking for at #4: a fraudulent business that steals money from customers.

One possible connotation of "прокладка" (when used figuratively) is that it doesn't do anything useful.

For example, an incompetent driver can be jokingly called "прокладка между рулём и сиденьем" (a filler between the wheel and the seat), implying that instead of controlling the car, the person merely fills the space.

I think that connotation perfectly fits the company that takes your money but doesn't do any property maintenance.

Another possible connotation of "прокладка" is "изолирующая прокладка" -- a kind of separator between two objects, preventing direct contact between them. Figuratively, it prevents people from blaming the government by being that decoy (or dummy?) that takes the blame, thus protecting the real slackers.

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  • Correct. In contrast to the closest English word, middleman, «прокладка» in this figurative sense is always used in the negative context. Middleman is often also negative, but not always. Commented 2 days ago

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