After the fall of communism, Russia inaugurated capitalism by selling billions of dollars in state activities.
Now, 30 years later, the Russian government is intensifying a campaign in war to do the opposite: to grasp private companies, this time on behalf of national security.
In the last month, the courts have ordered the largest Russian warehouse owner to be detected by the state and also directed the nationalization of an important cereal exporter. And in the most surprising case, public ministries have filed a cause in January to seize Moscow airport.
The new wave of expropriation expands on the kidnappings of western businesses in Russia after the invasion of the Ukraine of President Vladimir V. Putin began three years ago. But in the latter cases, the owners are Russian, a sign of how the push of the Kremlin to take control of the economy in the midst of the war in Ukraine is reaching more and more industries.
Critics say that the convulsions of the activities are also undermining the latest vestiges of the rule of law of Russia. They became “chaotic” and “out of control”, said Alexandra Prokopenko, a colleague in the Eurasia center of Carnegie Russia in Berlin.
By capturing private enterprises, the Kremlin can put large sections of the economy in state -handed hands or under the indirect control of the shareholders of Mr. Putin, allowing the government to adapt industrial production to the needs of war effort and also be able to be able to introduce price checks. It also aligns with the objective of the Russian leader to tighten the grip on internal politics.
The researchers of the London School of Economics have identified more than 200 judgments of the Russian Court to nationalize private companies since the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The courts, they said, mainly used the statements that companies violated The laws on privatization of the 90s to seize them from companies considered “hostile to the Kremlin regime”.
As a whole, these convulsions are equivalent to “the greatest redistribution of property in Russia from the push to privatization” in the 90s, said Alexander Kolyandr, a member of the Center for European Policy Analysis.
In Tuesday’s talks with a United States delegation in Saudi Arabia, Russian officials appealed to the desire of the Trump administration to find economic opportunities, claiming that American companies stop to do billions if they fall into Russia. The Russian official in the interviews responsible for commercial links, however, did not mention the judgments of the court that eroded the property rights in Russia.
In a sign that the Kremlin was anticipating an influx of foreign companies as part of the rapprochement with the United States, Putin ordered his government on Friday to establish rules for the return of the western companies that left Russia after the invasion of 2022 of ‘Ukraine. While Mr. Putin indicated that Moscow would welcome them, he also clarified that he wanted Russian companies to have “some advantages” on foreign competitors as a refund for the western sanctions that pushed the exodus of 2022.
Mr. Putin personally guided a campaign to take reference activities by foreign owners in the first months of the war. He signed several decrees in 2022 and 2023, first excluding foreign owners to sell their activities, thus allowing the state to “temporarily hire” the Russian companies owned by individuals of “hostile nations”. But since then he has taken a rear seat while the property convulsions have spread in different sectors of the economy.
The attempt to seize Moscow airport, Domodedovo, is the last save in a long -standing feud with the owner of the majority, Dmitry Kamenshchik, a lone businessman who has not supported or openly opposite to the government and one ‘ Indication of the Kremlin is serious increase in nationalization.
Domodedovo – who managed about many passengers from Newark Liberty international airport in 2022 – is Russia’s largest airport still in private hands. The Russian government has tried several times in the past two decades To take control of the airport, but this time it seems determined to be successful.
The justification ministries are now using is that Mr. Kamenshchik is also a citizen of the United Arab Emirates and Turkey.
Russian law prevents foreign investors in those who are considered “strategic sectors” without authorization from the special government.
Kamenshchik has controlled the airport since he deprived it in the 90s – in recent years through a Cypriot company – and the authorities have not previously raised any concern about his citizenship.
Kamenshchik and an associate, said public ministries, are “pursuing the aggressive policies of the western countries aimed at inflicting a strategic defeat on the Russian Federation by damaging its economy”, according to an extract from the cause of last month cited by the newspaper of the Russian day Vedomosti . He accused him of “sabotage” the efforts to modernize the airport. Public ministries also stated that the two businessmen subtracted over 180 million dollars, from the current exchange rate, from the profits of Domodedovo between 2021 and 2023.
It was not immediately clear if the authorities were pursuing separate accusations on these accusations.
The place where Mr. Kamenshkik is not clear; It is not said that he left Russia. The efforts to reach it for a comment through the intermediaries and the airport press office remained unanswered.
The Court quickly frozen the Russian activities of the company and Mr. Kamenshchik and warned him and his partner from “destabilizing” the operations in Domodedovo.
The profitable airport has long been in the crossed hair of the police and powerful commercial interests with bonds with the Kremlin. In 2011, the Russian media reported that Arkady Rotenberg, a childhood friend of Mr. Putin, was observing the resources of Mr. Kamenshkik.
Whatever the patronage of the high level of Domodedovo who has enjoyed in the past to avoid the attacks of its competitors, the war in Ukraine has clearly canceled it, the analysts said.
“Domodedovo was too big to be swallowed – and now it is not,” said Kolyandr, the analyst. “Before the war, there were probably people of the government or close to the government who claimed to monopolize the property of airport infrastructures. Now, state interests exceed everything. “
The attempt to grasp the airport is only the most important example of the effort of nationalization. In one case that shaken another sector of the economy, a Moscow court last month ordered that the activities of Raven Russia, the largest warehouse owner in the country, were delivered to the state.
He said that the $ 1 billion dollar logistics terminals were “strategic goods” purchased without authorization from the special government.
Russian ministries are required to affirm that the activities they are seizing are strategic, even if they have never been considered previously.
Raven Russia defined the “illegal and unfounded” sentence and has committed himself to appeal.
Last week, the Court gave the green light to the seizure, citing the foreign residence of the company owner.
And in a third recent case, a court in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don seized one of the largest Russian cereal exporters, a company called Rodnye Polya, from its billionaire owner Pyotr Khodykin. The Court said that the residence of Mr. Khodykin in the United Arab Emirates has placed a “strategic enterprise” in foreign hands.
Rodnye Polya, who recorded income about 3 billion dollars in 2023, manages a port in the city of Azov, on the sea of Azov, with 17 ships and hundreds of train wagons. It was estimated for a value of about $ 600 million at the end of 2023.
The problems began for Rodnye Polya a few months earlier: in the spring, the Russian agriculture supervision agency began blocking the company’s shipments, saying that quality control were failing. Dozens of ships were blocked in ports and about 80 % of Rodnye Polya’s exports were interrupted, according to the agency.
Mr. Khodykin, the owner of the company, did not respond to a commentary request. He said that the court took a “political decision” to seize his company in an interview with local media.
“Is there any investment point in a country where any activity can be expropriated years later?” Mr. Khodykin asked in the interview. “Then no other business can feel safe.”