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5.2.4 Gross international reserves
Russia’s international reserves down by $0.8bn to $585.8bn in a week.
Reserves stood at $586.6bn as of August 4
5.3 FDI
This year, the Kremlin seized assets from four major foreign companies.
First, Russia’s Federal Property Management Agency was given control over Germany’s Uniper and Finland’s Fortum. Both were big players in the Russian electricity sector.
In reality, they will be taken over by people from state-owned oil giant Rosneft, whose head Igor Sechin is chairman of the board of state electricity company Inter RAO.
Then, Putin decreed the nationalization of dairy company Danone Rossiya and Baltika Brewery (owned by Denmark’s Carlsberg). Danone is now headed by Yakub Zakriyev, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov’s nephew and former Chechen agriculture minister. The brewery’s new boss is 70-year-old Taimuraz Bolloyev, who ran the company between 1991 and 2004.
Russia’s last major redistribution of business assets was after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Whatever we might say about the methods of the 1990s, this
RUSSIA Country Report September 2023 www.intellinews.com