The Dutch brewing concern Heineken announced its intention to leave the Russian market in the first half of 2023. The company also said that they had donated more than 1 million euros to help Ukraine.
At the beginning of March 2022, the Dutch brewing company Heineken intends to announce the termination of investments and exports of its products to Russia. This is reported on the company’s website.
“Shortly after we announced our decision to withdraw the Heineken brand from the market, local operations in Russia received official warnings from the Russian prosecutor’s office that if this decision resulted in the suspension or closure of our business, it would be considered “intentional bankruptcy,” which continues to be a criminal offense in Russia to this day. It is currently difficult to close the agreement in Russia as the rules continue to change. We want everything to happen faster and aim to reach an agreement in the first half of this year,” the message says.
Heineken estimated the damage from the exit from the Russian market at almost 300 million euros.
The company mentioned that they are actively helping Ukraine. In particular, they noted that they donated more than 1 million euros through the company and employees of Habitat for Humanity to support humanitarian assistance to refugees from Ukraine.
On February 14, Reuters wrote that after the start of the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation into Ukraine, gas exports to European countries decreased significantly. Although Western sanctions did not apply to pipeline gas, Russia itself limited its supply. The decline in gas exports continued in January 2023, according to journalists, over the past month, the Russian gas monopoly earned $3.4 billion from exports, while for the same period in 2022, the profit amounted to $6.3 billion.
