Posted on 03/30/2025 10:27:15 AM PDT by tlozo
An American businessman is urging President Trump to help save his $200 million canned-food empire after Russian authorities took over his company and seized its assets.
Los Angeles-based Leonid Smirnov, who fled Soviet communism in the 1970s, says he’s in a race against time to save Glavprodukt — the Campbell’s of Russia — which he founded in 1999 and built into a household name in his homeland.
“What’s happening with my company is a raid under a government seizure and confiscation attempt,”
If it can happen to him, he said in a warning to Trump, it can happen to any of hundreds of US-owned companies operating in Russia, after President Vladimir Putin set his sights on foreign businesses after the invasion of Ukraine.
About a dozen companies have been put under “temporary management” in the past three years. Smirnov’s Glavprodukt was the first American-owned company to be targeted, and is famous across the motherland for its canned soups, vegetables, fish, and meat...
Things changed in October last year, when three strangers arrived at its headquarters to take charge.
They were sent on Putin’s orders. His decree ordered that Glavprodukt and other assets owned by Smirnov’s American company Universal Beverage be put under “temporary” Russian management.
Since then, he said, the Moscow-based company... had begun taking losses for the first time. Overall, he estimates the company has lost as much as 30 percent of its value...
In the past month, the country’s prosecutor general accused him of illegally syphoning millions of dollars to the US and of joining with Washington in seeking the “strategic defeat” of Russia...
Two weeks ago, a court ordered the seizure of cash and assets connected to Glavprodukt...
It was all part of a pressure campaign, said Smirnov, to force him to sell at a knock-down price.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
In Russia, canned soup eats you
Beat me to it.
A war over Big Soup?
Sanctions and confiscation of assets works both ways sport.
What does his product provide for the US?
Trump needs to pull all aid for Ukraine and get us out of all involvement with this war.
There is absolutely no national interest in Ukraine and staying involved in this war is a distraction.
Trump's only concern with Russia should be normalizing relations with it in exchange for favorable trade deals if that's possible.
That didn’t take long.
Seriously Leonid, the Russian mafia have come for your company. Don’t try to work a deal, don’t count on Trump, and don’t sell. Shut it down. Delete your proprietary software and business records, destroy your automated systems, and send everyone home.
The Russian government can make the soup.
Get on the Trump Train, Ivan.
If it’s the mafia, can’t he just put a fictional Sergei on the payroll and pay a protection premium?
Yeah, what’s next—Trump to save the Soup Nazi from the Germans?
Had to look it up, but that’s supposed to be a can of herring!
Not if the mafia wants it all.
Yup! Bony and toothy appetite!
Good advice.
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