During the three years of full-scale aggression against Ukraine, thousands of sanctions have been imposed on Russia across various sectors. One of the most widespread measures has been the blocking (freezing) of Russian private and state-owned assets. 

Despite having limited means of counteraction, Russia has not left these measures unanswered and has systematically implemented countermeasures against the assets of foreign businesses under its jurisdiction. These actions began at the outset of the invasion and continue to this day.

These measures, their legal nature, and their political context are largely overlooked, as the primary focus remains on the confiscation of Russian private and sovereign assets abroad. Although these actions resemble gangster tactics more than legal mechanisms, their effectiveness cannot be ignored. While our allies in the EU and the Group of Seven (G7) have largely restricted themselves to freezing private assets and, in rare cases, resorting to confiscation or nationalization, Russia has actively pursued the covert expropriation of such assets.

At the same time, the Kremlin acts in the interests of loyal political and business groups, ensuring their control over these assets while achieving multiple objectives: exerting pressure on “unfriendly” countries, stabilizing the domestic economic situation, and maintaining the loyalty of the elites.

By the Ukrainian and international experts, this situation is most often analyzed through a moral lens: condemning doing business on the Russian market and approving the decisions of international companies to exit it. However, in practice, the actions of the Russian authorities are well-planned to achieve these goals, although they do not meet any standards of the rule of law or protection of property rights.

Without awareness of this practice, it is impossible to form a complete picture of Russian aggression, including its hybrid methods. Such an analysis allows not only to better understand the legal arsenal of Russian economic warfare, but also to determine the issue of Russia's responsibility, in particular for these actions.

How Russian mechanisms work and what happened to the assets of Uniper, Fortum, Danone and Carlsberg - in the analytical report "Out of Russia at a Low: How the Kremlin Appropriates Foreign Assets" by Sofiia Kosarevych and Ivan Horodyskyi.