At least 50 large companies are still producing goods at a full or limited scale on 154 sites in various regions and corners of Russia and, therefore, supporting and funding the Kremlin’s capacity to wage the war in the middle of Europe, according to the updated and expanded database collected by the B4Ukraine team. The number is likely to be even larger since over a thousand companies keep operating in Russia, according to the KSE Institute. To learn about each company and each production site, see the list here.
Those fifty companies are very diverse. These are Austrian, French, Italian, German, Greek, Spanish, and American companies. They produce food, medicine, medical equipment, sweets as well as building materials, and other products. Some of them are quite famous big names in the corporate world.
But one thing is common for all of them – they are very reluctant to leave Russia, much more reluctant than those companies that have only shops and restaurants. Such companies invested billions to create these manufacturing capacities and they are not willing to give up on them easily. Most of them prefer to continue operations in Russia silently. Even if they make any public statements, they usually commit to suspending imports and exports, seizing investments and advertising spending, but leave their production sites unmentioned.
It’s time for international businesses to reconsider offshoring production in Russia and look at more recent trends - reshoring and friendshoring. Taking into account whether the countries they work in share the same values as their countries of origin will also allow the companies to mitigate potential risks arising from unexpected actions of governments in the future.