Two pledges that marked mid-July 2023

What did the days leading up to 20 July 2023 show about the economic and political fronts of the war? Two reports from the preceding week point in different directions: one about support for Ukraine, the other about pressure on foreign business in Russia.

On 15 July 2023, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol made an unannounced visit to Kyiv and met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. He announced that South Korea would pledge US$150 million in additional aid to Ukraine. The word "additional" matters: the pledge was an increase on support already given, not a new relationship.

On 16 July 2023, Russian President Vladimir Putin authorised a temporary state takeover of the shares of French agribusiness Danone and of Baltika, the brewer owned by Carlsberg. The move was part of a wider response to many private companies, including these two, reducing their business operations in Russia during the war.

Two sides of the same conflict

The two events were separate and the reports do not link them. Together, though, they illustrate how the war extended beyond the battlefield. Governments abroad were pledging money to Kyiv, while companies were scaling back their presence in Russia, and Moscow was answering with state control over some of their assets.

The corporate pullback was broad. Many private companies ceased operations in Russia or donated, or matched donations, to the Ukrainian government or Ukrainian organisations. Others applied various sanctions. The Danone and Baltika decision showed that Russia's response to such withdrawals could include taking over shares, if only temporarily.

For international readers, the lesson of this period is that support for Ukraine and the commercial fallout of the war were developing side by side, through visits and aid pledges on one side and corporate decisions and state intervention on the other.