Posted on 07/19/2023 1:15:09 PM PDT by Timber Rattler
The Kremlin’s move to seize the Russian assets of Carlsberg and Danone is Moscow’s most brazen attack yet on foreign firms operating in Russia, and is likely to trigger fresh concern among businesses that have continued operating in the country, experts said.
President Vladimir Putin is handing control of the Russian subsidiaries of French food maker Danone and Danish brewer Carlsberg to regime loyalists, according to local media reports and government corporate registries, in a move that amounts to an expropriation of assets valued at well over $1 billion.
Both companies have huge operations in Russia and had publicly said they were preparing to exit the country, though had not yet closed down operations or finalized a sale.
Danone, the largest producer of dairy products in Russia, took in $3 billion in revenues in Russia last year, according to the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE). Its Russian subsidiary will be taken over by longtime Putin friend Taimuraz Bolloev, who has connections to Kremlin-favored tycoons Yury and Mikhail Kovalchuk as well as Arkady Rotenburg.
Beer-maker Carlsberg — whose Russian subsidy Baltika chalked up $1.6 billion in sales in 2022, according to KSE analysis — is to be handed to Yakub Zakriev, the nephew of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, a key Putin ally in the restive North Caucasus region.
“It shows that Russia is prepared to take countermeasures against Western companies in order to curry favor with the new elites. The redistribution of wealth is reminiscent of the 1990s, when the oligarchs emerged,” said Maria Shagina, a senior research fellow for economic sanctions at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).
(Excerpt) Read more at themoscowtimes.com ...
One observes that this is the argumentation of the third term of Obama-Biden, as I see it, and the basic argumentation of Blinken and Nuland. Ergo, the "some kind of threat to the USA" has to be considered. What sort of threat?
On a number of occasions now, some have posted to me as "helpful hint" and "reminder" the quote about "taunts" and such from Robinson, but fail to include his text about those of us "may have a difference of opinion whether or not the US government should be involved in a controversial foreign war where we were not attacked."
Threat? We were not attacked. And the "foreign war" is in a foreign clime far from our borders. So the "not my circus and not my clowns" stance is apt and a third option, especially given the rapid increase in public debt courtesy of -- indeed -- "foreign war" and an inexplicable rise in the debt pf $27 trillion over the last 22 and 1/2 years. "Foreign war." Because...."some kind of threat to the USA...."
Now we’re back to the good old days of the Cold War:
Peripetchikoff : No formula, NO DEAL!
C.R. MacNamara : OK, NO DEAL!
Borodenko : We do not need you! If we want Coca-cola, we invent it ourselves!
C.R. MacNamara : Oh, yeah? In 1956 you flew a bottle of Coke to a secret laboratory in Sverdlosk. A dozen of your top chemists went nuts trying to analyze the ingredients. Right?
Mishkin : No comment!
C.R. MacNamara : And in 1958, you planted two undercover agents in Atlanta to steal the formula. And what happened? They both defected! And now they’re successful businessmen in Florida packaging instant borscht. Right?
Peripetchikoff : No comment!
C.R. MacNamara : Last year you put out a cockamamie imitation “Kremlin-kola!” You tried it out in the satellite countries, but even the Albanians wouldn’t drink it. They used it for SHEEP DIP! RIGHT?
Mishkin : No comment!
C.R. MacNamara : So either get down to business or get off the pot!
Peripetchikoff : My dear American friend, if we are to live together in peaceful coexistence, there must be a certain amount of give and take.
C.R. MacNamara : Oh, sure - we give and you take.
Peripetchikoff : What is the matter - you do not trust us?
C.R. MacNamara : No comment!
There was the Zimmerman Letter
“Threat? We were not attacked.”
Obviously you’re not following the thread of the comments that went back and forth, so it’s not surprising that your response doesn’t make any sense in that context, so I am just going to disregard it.
“Danone and Carlsberg were in the process of selling their Russian operations”
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-66218999
I suspect they were seized as security to ensure seized Russian assets outside of Russia will get returned.
Hindsight is always 2020!
It would have been better for all parties if WWI had been avoided. Though violent revolution may have still come to Russia.
In regard to the idea of Germany winning WWI, how’s this for an alternative history. The Fascism virus breaks out in France, not Germany! The French have always been very much statists! Have the same worldwide economic collapse due to the war and bad economic choices. France is surrounded by Germany and Perfidious Albion who historically they’d prefer to fight not be allied to. So they are paranoid about that. Germany is a lazy moribund victor like the French were. Maybe has their hands full helping the Romanovs stay on their throne, also throw in some trouble with newly acquired French colonies. Just run the whole rise of Nazism & WWII timeline on the south side of the Rhine! I think it would be an interesting alternative history book to write.
Just wait... wait till the ground freezes... just wait and see, the mighty russia will dominate the world !!!
How about some dates ? Will be fun to ping you then.
“Probably in response to the seizing of assets by us and NATO under the guise of sanctions. Actually surprised they haven’t done it sooner.”
The companies were probably being properly run and Putin didn’t want to risk Russian jobs by putting Carlsberg and Danone under government management.
"The Moscow Times is not published in Russia."
A lot of Freepers on here remind me of the old “Blame America First” crowd in the Democrat party.
It was France’s Alliance with Russia that caused the conflaguration to spread in 1914.
true...
hemoscowtimes.com
Registrar: Hosting Concepts B.V. d/b/a Registrar.eu
Registered On: 2000-02-03
Stichting Potamos
Country: NL
Stichting Potamos
Ansterdamseweg 123
1182 GR, Amstelveen
The Netherlands
Interestingly The Moscow Times is published in English and Russian, and mp other European languages as best it seems.
Dutch.
And so, by commenting on it after reading it in order to comment, disregard is apt.... "in that context."
Well, given western governments expropriated Russian assets already, I’m surprised they had not made this move yet. Retaliation in kind is what everybody should have expected right from the start.
*****************
The western governments led by our corrupt government set off sanctions dynamite all over the globe.
It was pure economic stupidity and there will be a huge price to be paid both now & in the future.
Нью-Йорк Таймс does not have the authentic NYC ring to it either.
“...but they’re ALL getting wise to the game...”
It isn’t all those foreign countries that bother me...it’s China. They are the ones that have got smart. They’ve paired themselves with Russia, they control all the western ports in the US and every one of the shipping companies except Matsun. They are trying to control our entire shipping capacity therefore all of our products. They are becoming a logistics world wide giant:
https://qz.com/china-wants-its-homegrown-logistics-giants-to-take-on-f-1849703548
And they aren’t hiding a thing doing it. Wonder why we have a product problem? It’s happening from China, the liberal party helping them, and the longshoremen’s union and people. So worrying about all the countries you mentioned trying to keep their heads above water, you might add the US to that list as we are having the same problem they are. And the feds and media are hiding it under that stone they haven’t turned over yet.
wy69
Amen.
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