This is a company that has left Russia due to the invasion of Ukraine

Posted On: March 3, 2022

German Padinger

(CNN Business) — More and more international companies, including Apple, Disney and Ford, are shutting down their operations in Russia due to the invasion of Ukraine.

On Tuesday, Exxon announced that it was abandoning its newest project in Russia, while Boeing said it had suspended its main Moscow operations.

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Other players in the global energy sector, such as BP and Shell, are also distancing themselves. And entertainment studios like Disney and CNN’s parent company WarnerMedia have stopped releasing films in the country.

Russia has been trying to stem the exodus, with new capital controls announced this week. According to the country’s state media, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin said on Tuesday that Western companies made the decision due to “political pressure,” and would be prevented from selling Russian assets until that subsided.

Meanwhile, countries around the world have imposed sanctions on Russia, with new measures from the European Union, United States, United Kingdom, Japan, Switzerland and Australia announced in recent days.

Ford dealers and service centers in Russia.

Companies that have left Russia due to the invasion of Ukraine

Car company case

Ford announced Tuesday that it is suspending its operations in Russia. The US automaker has a 50% stake in Ford Sollers, a joint venture that employs at least 4,000 people that shares with Russian firm Sollers.

Ford had said earlier on Tuesday that it was “deeply concerned about the situation in Ukraine” but stopped short of halting operations in three Russian cities where the company has factories: St. Petersburg, Elabuga and Naberezhnye Chelny.

The company notes that it has “significantly scaled back” its operations in Russia in recent years, and has a “strong contingent of Ukrainians working at Ford around the world.”

General Motors said on Friday it was halting all exports to the country “until further notice.”

GM does not have a significant presence there, selling only about 3,000 vehicles a year through 16 dealers, according to a spokesman. That’s out of the more than 6 million vehicles sold by the Detroit-based automaker worldwide each year.

A re:Shop shops in the center of Moscow. re:Store is one of the largest Apple dealers in Russia.

Airline companies react to invasion of Ukraine

Boeing said on Tuesday it would suspend support and service to the Russian airline.

A company spokesman confirmed that they were ceasing “spare parts, maintenance and technical support services for Russian airlines”, as well as “suspending major operations in Moscow and temporarily closing our office in Kiev”.

“As the conflict continues, our teams are focused on ensuring the safety of our teammates in the region,” the representative added.

Airbus followed Boeing in a similar way on Wednesday. In a statement, the planemaker said it had “suspended support services for the Russian airline, as well as the supply of spare parts to the country.”

Big tech companies are also leaving Russia

Apple has stopped selling its products in Russia, the company announced Tuesday.

The company said in a statement that it was “deeply concerned” about the Russian invasion. In response, it has also restricted access to digital services, such as Apple Pay, within Russia, and has restricted the availability of Russian state media apps abroad.

Meta, Facebook’s parent company, said Monday it would block access to Russian media RT and Sputnik across the European Union.

The move came after receiving “requests from various governments and the EU to take further action with respect to Russia’s state-controlled media,” Nick Clegg, the company’s vice president of global affairs, wrote in a tweet.

A Shell gas station is seen in Moscow in 2020.

Meta also says it has placed algorithmic restrictions on Russian state-run media outlets that should prevent them from appearing so prominently in user feeds.

Twitter has also announced plans to “reduce the visibility and amplification” of Russian state media content.

Netflix also said Monday that it refuses to broadcast Russian state TV channels in the country, something streamers are required to do by Russian law starting this week.

“Given the current situation, we have no plans to add these channels to our service,” the company told CNN Business.

Roku, a company that sells hardware that allows users to stream content over the Internet, has also pledged to ban RT in Europe.

YouTube, which is owned by Google, said over the weekend it had blocked Russian state media outlets in Ukraine, including RT. The video platform also said it would “significantly limit recommendations for this channel.”

Google and YouTube also said they would no longer allow Russian state media outlets to run ads or monetize their content.

A shopper opens an umbrella with Disney princesses at a children’s center store on Moscow’s Lubyanka Square in 2017.

Energy companies attract investment from Russia

BP said on Sunday it plans to exit its 19.75% stake in Russia’s biggest oil company Rosneft and its joint venture, one of Russia’s biggest foreign investments.

Equinor will also start exiting a joint venture in Russia, the Norwegian oil and gas company announced on Monday.

“We are all very concerned about the invasion of Ukraine, which is a terrible setback for the world,” said CEO Anders Opedal.

The company says it has $1.2 billion in long-term investments in Russia by the end of 2021. It has operated in Russia for more than 30 years and has a cooperation agreement with Rosneft.

Exxon vowed on Tuesday to abandon Russia’s newest oil and gas project and not invest in new developments in the country.

The Sakhalin-1 venture is “one of the largest international direct investments in Russia,” according to the project’s website. Exxon affiliates own a 30% stake, while Rosneft also owns a stake.

By leaving this project, Exxon will end more than a quarter century of the company’s continued presence in Russia.

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Shell also pulled out of Russia and abandoned its joint ventures with Gazprom, including its stake in the near-defunct Nord Stream 2 pipeline.

The UK-based oil company said on Monday it would relinquish its stake in a liquefied natural gas facility, its stake in a project to develop fields in western Siberia and its interest in exploration projects on the Gydan peninsula in northwestern Siberia.

“We are appalled by the loss of life in Ukraine, which we regret, as a result of this senseless act of military aggression that threatens European security,” Shell CEO Ben van Beurden said in a statement.

On Tuesday, TotalEnergies also condemned Russia’s actions and said it would stop providing capital for new projects in the country.

The French oil giant has been doing business in Russia for 25 years, and recently helped launch a large liquefied natural gas project off the Siberian coast.

The financial sector moves after the Russian invasion of Ukraine

Norway’s $1.3 trillion sovereign wealth fund will divest stakes in 47 Russian companies as well as Russian sovereign bonds, Norway’s prime minister said on Sunday.

Mastercard announced Monday that it has “blocked many financial institutions” from its network as a result of anti-Russian sanctions, and that it will “continue to work with regulators in the coming days.”

Visa also said Tuesday it is taking steps to comply with the penalties as they develop.

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Media and entertainment response

DirecTV has cut ties with RT, a Russia-backed television network known for promoting Russian President Vladimir Putin’s agenda.

A spokeswoman for the US satellite company told CNN Business on Tuesday that they were reviewing whether to renew the network freight deal, which is due to expire at the end of this year. Russia’s war against Ukraine hastened its decision, the representative said.

Disney also suspended the release of its films in Russia, citing the “unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.”

The entertainment giant has several films scheduled to be released in Russia in the coming months. That includes Marvel’s “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” on May 5 and Pixar’s “Lightyear” on June 16.

“We will make future business decisions based on how the situation develops,” a Disney spokesperson said.

WarnerMedia reported Monday that it will be suspending the release of “The Batman” in Russia.

The film is expected to be one of the biggest box office hits of the year, and will be released in most countries by Warner Bros., which, like CNN, is a unit of WarnerMedia.

A company spokesman said the decision was made “in light of the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine,” and that the company hoped for a “quick and peaceful resolution of this tragedy.”

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Water transportation

Maersk and MSC Mediterranean Shipping Company suspended cargo orders with Russia.

“As the stability and security of our operations have been affected directly and indirectly by sanctions, Maersk’s new orders to and from Russia will be temporarily suspended, with the exception of food products and medical and humanitarian supplies,” he said. Denmark-based company in a statement.

“We are very concerned about how the crisis continues to escalate in Ukraine,” the company added.

MSC, a Swiss-owned container shipping line, said the suspension itself began on Tuesday, and would cover “all access areas, including the Baltic, Black Sea and Russian Far East.”

With information from Michelle Toh, Chris Isidore, Vanessa Yurkevich, Paul P. Murphy, Mark Thompson, Vasco Cotovio, Peter Valdes-Dapena, Frank Pallotta, Brian Fung, Oliver Darcy, Jordan Valinsky and Chris Liakos.