reuters.com
www.reuters.com

Plans are afoot for an American-owned company seized by the Kremlin and placed under state control to be used to supply food to the Russian army, a document seen by Reuters showed, potentially threatening Moscow’s warming relations with the U.S.

As the U.S. and the Kremlin negotiate to stop the war in Ukraine, the canned food maker Glavprodukt which was seized in October and is the only American-owned firm to be taken under state control, has been caught in the crosshairs.

The seizure was necessary to ensure stable production, including for future supplies to the national guard and defence ministry, according to a letter, reviewed by Reuters, addressed to Russia’s prosecutor general from Glavprodukt’s new management.

Glavprodukt is now under the control of Russia’s federal property management agency Rosimushchestvo having been seized from Los Angeles-based Leonid Smirnov.

  • anon6789@lemmy.worldEnglish
    6·
    9 days ago

    I’m always interested in these situations where Trump is caught in the middle of 2 actual rich/powerful people to see where his position will land.

    I feel dirty given the source being NY Post, but it’s the biggest coverage I can find on this, and the sucking up to Trump I feel is the best context given his fairly reliable vanity leading him to who he likes or not. It offers a look at the other side of OP’s article.

    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,” he told The Post.

    And 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.

    With the FTC being the only agency with any independence left at the end of this week when the regulation oversight executive order goes in effect, the current regime is still hesitant to outright screw with American money, at least for big time businesses and investors.

    Since then, he said, the Moscow-based company — which employed 1,000 workers across three factories — had begun taking losses for the first time. Overall, he estimates the company has lost as much as 30 percent of its value.

    “We basically have this company being destroyed on a daily basis,” said Smirnov.

    He supplied partially obscured photos of himself to The Post, saying he now fears for his and his family’s safety.

    Two weeks ago, a court ordered the seizure of cash and assets connected to Glavprodukt. Russian prosecutors claimed he had been illegally sending dividends from the business to the U.S.

    It was all part of a pressure campaign, said Smirnov, to force him to sell at a knock-down price.

    “I put 26 years of my life into that … building this company from scratch,” said Smirnov.

    How does one run an oligarchy if the oligarchs don’t maintain faith in you?

    Just a note, I’m not pro anyone in this story. I want Ukraine to get their country back (all of it) and for anyone who may have broken the law to see justice. I’m mainly here to ponder the ways this will make Trump enjoy his position as “peace broker” miserable as he needs to weasel between 2 groups he really really wants to like him, but he can only please one or none of them.