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Two moves that framed the war's wider fronts
Summary
A look back at mid-July 2023, when Moscow moved against Western-owned firms and Seoul pledged new aid to Kyiv.
What did the business and diplomatic sides of the war look like on 21 July 2023? Two developments from the days just before that date offer a picture.
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.
On 16 July 2023, Russian President Vladimir Putin authorised a temporary state takeover of the shares of two foreign-linked companies: the French agribusiness Danone and Baltika, a brewer owned by Carlsberg. The step formed part of a wider response to the many private companies, these two among them, that had been reducing their business operations in Russia during the war in Ukraine.
Two tracks of the same conflict
The two events sat on different tracks. One was a government-level show of support for Ukraine, delivered in person in the capital. The other was a Russian state intervention in the affairs of companies that had been scaling back their presence in the country.
The corporate dimension was already broad by then. Many private companies had ceased operations in Russia, or donated to the Ukrainian government or Ukrainian organisations, in response to Russia's seizure of Ukrainian territory in 2014 and 2022. Others had applied various sanctions.
Taken together, the events of 15 and 16 July 2023 showed how the war was being felt well beyond the battlefield: in the aid pledges of a visiting head of state, and in the boardrooms and shareholdings of firms deciding how far to stay in Russia.
