Russia-Ukraine War: Only 8.5% of Western companies left Moscow

Two months after a year, the war between Russia and Ukraine after the invasion of the army of Vladimir Putin seems far from a solution and, despite the strong sanctions adopted by the West against Moscow, there has been no exodus of foreign companies from the Russian market. Only 8.5% of Western companies have closed their operations in Russiaaccording to a study conducted in Switzerland.

According to the study, taken up by the newspaper Moscow timesWhen Moscow launched its operation, 1,404 companies from the European Union and G7 countries had 2,405 active branches in Russia. By the end of November, when the war was nine months old, only 120 of these companies (8.5%) had closed at least one branch in Russia.

Most of those who have left are Americans, but fewer than 18% of branches continue to close. You Followed by Japan with 15% and the European Union with only 8.3%. “What is emerging contrasts with the narrative that there is a large exodus from Western societies,” said the University of St. Gallen, which oversaw the research together with the IMD institute in Lausanne, in a statement.

The companies that left Russia still held a combined share of no more than 6.5% of the total profits made in the country by EU and G7 companies, and 15.3% of the number of employees of these companies in Russia . Those who left therefore tended to have lower earnings than a larger workforce, the study concludes.

The results, underlined the University of St. Gallen, question the willingness of Western companies to follow the political decisions of their governments, in particular by separating their destinies from those of the economies of countries considered geopolitical rivals.

In the same month, an article by the consulting firm NF Group, taken up by the Russian economic newspaper vedomostihighlighted that, above all, many foreign fashion brands were still active in the country, with the Americans in first place, followed by the Italians and the French.

The main clothing and accessories shops of important Western manufacturers therefore continue to operate in the most elegant streets of Moscow and other cities and in shopping centres, in many cases overcoming the blockade of direct exports with parallels or triangulations with other countries.

One by one, which companies left Russia last year

American companies Cgoose-Cola, Pepsi, McDonald’s and Starbucks announced their departure from Russia in March last year. But they are not the only ones, more than 50 companies from all over the world have already left Vladimir Putin’s country. The offensive against Ukraine has met with almost total financial isolation, and the United States is leading this initiative.

Before Google, Visa, Mastercard, Disney, Netflix and several car companies went away. Also Heineken, TV Discovery and Universal Music Group. Others who have left: Linkedin, Boeing, Adobe, Intel, Maersk, Fedex, Ericsson, Jaguar, Lenovo, Nestlé, Harley Davidson, HP, Dropbox. Nintendo, Sony and Playstashion and Metro, among others.

Some of the companies that have left:

TikTok and Snapchat: Social networks have limited their presence in the country that has invaded Ukraine. Furthermore, the former prevents RT, the Russian network, from accessing your material or reaching Tik Tok, while the latter has stopped working in Russia and Belarus.

Spotify: canceled the possibility to pay for the service. In addition, he closed his Russian office indefinitely. Like Google and Apple, it has removed all RT and Sputnik content from its platform.

Nike: has closed its shops. Additionally, the company has disabled online purchases of products in Russia because it cannot guarantee delivery to customers in the country, the brand explained on its Russian website.

Automotive such as Ford and General Motors: one stopped producing in the plant which it shares with the Russian company Sollers. And the other suspended the export of 3,000 vehicles to Russia.

PayPal: blocked all outgoing payments from Russia. Minister of Digital Transformation of Ukraine Mykhalio Fedorov tweeted: “We received a letter from PayPal CEO @Dan_Schulman. So now it’s official: PayPal is stopping its services in Russia citing Ukraine’s aggression.”

With information from ANSA

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