Vladimir Putin signed a decree on September 17 transferring the Russian assets of five major Western companies to "temporary administration": the Swiss Nestlé and four French companies —Auchan, Lemana Pro (formerly Leroy Merlin), FM Logistic, and Bati Logistics— marking the largest wave of expropriations since the onset of the war in Ukraine, according to CNN.
The Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, justified the measure on Friday by labeling those affected as "European companies from unfriendly countries... that are currently actively participating in hostilities against us."
All assets —a total of 16 Russian legal entities— came under the control of L.E.V. Management, a company specifically established by the Russian state for this purpose, whose CEO was appointed just a week before the decree was signed.
The scope of the confiscations is significant: Nestlé operates six production plants in Russia with over 7,000 employees and annual sales in the country of approximately 335 million dollars; Auchan has 241 establishments —including 62 hypermarkets— and a workforce of 33,000 people; Lemana Pro has 112 megastores and 11 logistics centers; FM Logistic contributes three automated warehouses; and Bati Logistics adds smaller physical assets.
The Russian scheme does not provide for market value compensations. The most cited precedent is that of Renault, which in May 2022 received a symbolic ruble for assets valued at 2.2 billion euros. According to estimates from the Moscow firm NSP, the accumulated value of foreign property confiscated through this mechanism already exceeds 50 billion dollars.
The legal framework that supports these expropriations—including Presidential Decree No. 299—also allows for the suspension of control over trademarks and patents, enabling Russia to continue selling products like KitKat or Nescafé under their original brands without authorization from the parent companies.
Operations are channeled through Promsvyazbank, a bank linked to the Ministry of Defense, which obstructs any attempts by European parent companies to freeze accounts or declare insolvencies.
The measure is part of a sustained escalation of expropriations that began with the invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
In July 2023, the Kremlin had already implemented the same mechanism against the Russian subsidiary of Danone and against Carlsberg, which controlled the brewery Baltika. In just the first half of 2026, Russia seized assets worth $10.16 billion in 15 different cases, according to the analytical firm AK&M.
Expropriations are occurring alongside an escalation of Russia's hybrid war against Europe: the International Institute for Strategic Studies documented 144 incidents in 13 countries between August 2024 and February 2026, including saboteurs, cyberattacks, and disinformation operations.
France, which accounts for four of the five affected companies, responded with a joint statement from its Foreign and Economy ministries describing the measure as "unjustified" and demanding that Moscow reverse it.
Nestlé, for its part, stated that it was evaluating its options and committed to "taking all necessary measures to protect its rights and ensure the continuity of business operations for the benefit of all stakeholders, especially its employees." Its shares fell by 2% on the Zurich stock exchange.
The researcher Alexandra Prokopenko from the Carnegie Russia-Eurasia Center in Berlin warned in an article published in The New York Times that the Russian Attorney General "has vigorously promoted a series of nationalizations and reopened privatization agreements from the 1990s on the grounds that they violated the country's economic sovereignty," marking an unprecedented redistribution of assets since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The list of potential upcoming victims includes Raiffeisen and UniCredit banks, BP and TotalEnergies oil companies, and American firms PepsiCo and Mondelez International.
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