Only 9.5% or 348 foreign companies have left Russia in almost two years of a full-scale invasion. In 2023, more than 190 companies were added to this list, twenty of them in December.

These findings are part of the KSE Institute’s regular digest under the Self-Sanctions/LeaveRussia project, examining the repercussions of foreign business withdrawals on the Russian economy.

In December 2023, KSE researchers identified several international companies that have completely completed their exit from the Russian market, including Bridgestone Corporation, J&T Banka, Kuka, Leroy Merlin, OMV and Wintershall Dea AG (Vladimir Putin signed decrees according to which the shares of two foreign companies, namely the German Wintershall DEA and the Austrian OMV in joint ventures (JV) with Gazprom, will be forcibly sold to Russian owners), Playrix, Schaeffler, SPAR, Windar Renovables. 

In addition, the experts identified ten complete liquidations of foreign companies: Clariant AG, Duravit, Eti Maden, Kfw (IPEX-Bank, DEG, FuB), Rational, RELX, Spotify, Thermo Fisher, Wella, Wilhelmsen Ship Management. 

List of 27 more brands that were liquidated before December 2023 but accounted for later: Aareal Bank, AGB Nielsen, Amway, Autodesk, Brita, Dawn Foods, Dormer Pramet s.r.o., Endress+Hauser, Fonterra, GC Rieber Shipping, Grid Dynamics, Hellenic Bank, Infineon, JetBrains s.r.o., Nu Skin, Shipco, Simona, SOCAR, Talgo, Tesa, Tungsram, VELUX, Visteon, Walter Tools, William Grant & Sons, Woseba, Ziehl-Abegg.

At the same time, the status of Decathlon was updated, as it turned out that the company did not actually leave the Russian market but continued to work through intermediaries and earned $12 million.

As of January 7, 2024, the total count of international companies that have completely halted their operations in Russia stands at 348. This represents 9.5% of the total entries in the KSE database and 27.7% of firms that generated revenue in Russia in 2022. Additionally, 1206 companies (32.8% of the total) have scaled back operations and announced plans to exit the Russian market.

Conversely, 1,576 companies (42.8% of those monitored by the KSE Institute) have not yet decided to leave the Russian market, continuing their operations as usual. Another 547 companies (14.9% of the total) have paused new investments, adopting a wait-and-see approach.”