Russia European Asset Seizure Expands Ahead of EU Summit

Russia moved on Thursday to place the local assets of four more European companies under temporary management, according to a decree signed by President Vladimir Putin. The order, the latest Russia European Asset Seizure, named operations connected to French flooring maker Tarkett, German packaging firm Menshen, Swedish packaging group Sverige International Holdings, and Belgian hygiene products company Ontex. It also covered Russian assets tied to Eviosys, a former European metal-packaging business that US packaging group Sonoco acquired in December 2024, listed as owned by Sonoco's Dutch unit. The decree landed one day before Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was due to appear at an EU summit in Brussels on Friday.

The Kremlin presented the measure as a response to what it called the direct involvement of EU nations in battlefield hostilities, while stressing that the step was reversible. It is the second such decree in two months. A similar order last month put food giant Nestle and retailers Auchan and Metro under the same arrangement. Legal ownership stays with the foreign company. A state-appointed administrator takes over operations and decision-making, leaving the owner with the title to a business it no longer runs. Moscow has framed the mechanism as its answer to Western sanctions. Russia has long criticized the EU for freezing roughly €210 billion, about $238 billion, of Russian sovereign assets after the invasion of Ukraine, along with moves against assets belonging to Russian companies in Europe and other Western countries.

The timing sharpened the signal. The decree came as EU ties with Moscow sank to a new low over the bloc's backing for Ukraine, one day before Zelenskiy's summit appearance. Reuters reported that EU leaders planned to rally around the Ukrainian president at the Brussels meeting, with a winter support package on the agenda covering energy, air defense, and funding. Kyiv has warned that Russian missiles and drones keep striking Ukrainian cities as the cold season approaches. The asset move also surfaced amid reports that Washington could seek control of some of the Russian assets frozen in Europe, a step Moscow has warned against. (Reuters, Euronext)

How temporary management works

The mechanism dates to 2023, when Russia first turned temporary management into a tool of economic pressure. In April of that year, the Russian subsidiaries of Germany's Uniper and Finland's Fortum were taken under state control. Three months later, a July decree placed French yoghurt maker Danone's Russian subsidiary and Danish brewer Carlsberg's stake in Baltika Breweries under the temporary management of the state property agency Rosimushchestvo. Reuters reported at the time that the Kremlin warned it could seize more Western assets on what it described as a temporary basis, in retaliation for foreign moves against Russian companies abroad. Reuters archive

The pattern since then has been consistent. Orders for temporary management have often been followed by transfers to Russian buyers approved by the authorities. Danone and Carlsberg saw their assets briefly returned, only to be required to sell them to Russian companies at steep discounts, according to industry reporting. The decree targeting Nestle and Auchan last month was the first use of the tool in at least two years, and Thursday's order extended the pattern.

Why the timing matters

The decree arrived in the middle of a tense week for EU-Russia relations. On Thursday, Russia also publicized a Ukrainian drone strike on the Ryazan oil refinery southeast of Moscow, breaking with its usual practice of staying quiet about such attacks. Ukraine had paused strikes on Russian refineries for three days after US President Donald Trump announced an energy ceasefire, then resumed them, saying Russia kept pounding Ukrainian thermal power plants. Zelenskiy told the Financial Times that Kyiv was done honoring the arrangement. Trump called the resumed strikes a disgrace and blamed them for pushing up fuel prices weeks before the US midterm elections.

Against that backdrop, the asset decree functions as leverage. By moving against European firms just as Zelenskiy lands in Brussels, Moscow is reminding the EU that its companies still operating in Russia are exposed. European capitals have spent the year debating what to do with the frozen Russian sovereign assets, including proposals to use them to back loans for Ukraine. Russia's answer, delivered through Putin's decree, is that Western pressure carries a corporate price tag. Whether the Kremlin follows through with forced sales, as it did with Danone and Carlsberg, will show companies how temporary temporary management really is. For the firms named in this Russia European Asset Seizure, that answer matters now.