Ukraine strives to attract international visitors from Moscow as Danone and Carlsberg assets are seized

July 20, 2023: Ukraine is urging international institutions to divest from Russia and relocate to its war-stricken neighbor as Moscow continues to seize the assets of foreign corporations.

On Sunday, Russian President signed a decree for the government to seize the power of the Russian subsidiaries of French food producer Danone and Danish brewer Carlsberg, which takes the companies’ shares under “interim administration.”

Around 1,000 global firms started the process of leaving Russia after its illegal invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, but many have yet to sell their assets in the country successfully.

Sunday’s move was the first time Russia had taken hold of the associates of Western companies since it seized Finnish and German energy companies Fortum and Uniper in April. The Kremlin has previously indicated that this was revenge for Western seizures of Russian assets.

Sergiy Tsivkach is the CEO of UkraineInvest, a government agency tasked with attracting alien direct investment to Ukraine and promoting the country as a secure long-term investment option for international business.

“We are most interested in those that stopped investment plans in Russia,” Tsivkach told late in the previous month.

“We identified about 200 global companies that ceased investment activities in Russia, and we are in touch with them to provide the possibility to build manufacturing facilities in Ukraine instead of Russia.”

Tsivkach also called for additionally companies with operations in Russia to pull out, urging CEOs to look at the ethical implications and the business case for fully divesting.

“We understand that there may be difficulties with selling your businesses and leaving Russia, but that should be top on the agenda of every CEO of an international organization that still operates in Ukraine,” he said.

“It is important to show that the aggressor cannot receive investments or operations from international companies.”

According to the Yale School of Management, over 1,000 companies have publicly announced that they are freely curtailing operations in Russia above the basic minimum needed by international sanctions, but some have continued operating undeterred.