Western Companies Withdrawing from Russia: Why Should They?

New Eastblog article by Johannes Leitner and Hannes Meissner in the Austrian daily newspaper “Der Standard”.

Despite far-reaching sanctions and geopolitical risks, many international companies remain active in Russia. An empirical analysis of company data from the Kyiv School of Economics shows this. Of the 3945 international companies surveyed that were active in Russia in 2022, 423 companies had completed an exit from Russia by September of this year. This corresponds to just under eleven percent of all companies recorded in the database. This raises the question of why more than 3,500 companies are still present in Russia? The article shows that legal uncertainty and expropriation risks are increasing, but that the market remains lucrative. At the same time, the reputational risks only have a weak impact. Please follow the link to the article (in German).