German companies are the second largest foreign taxpayer in Russia.
The German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) reports that two-thirds of German companies that operated in Russia before the attack on Ukraine are still present there, continuing their business activities. In total, 261 German companies operate in Russia. This group includes such well-known brands as Metro, Uniper, Bayer, BMW and Hochland. In 2022, they paid a total of USD 402 million in income tax, and their turnover amounted to USD 23.2 billion, explains the German public radio Deutschlandfunk.
After the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, most Western companies declared that they would leave the Russian market. Over time, however, it turned out that in some cases only declarations remained and these intentions were not implemented. In order to report which companies have kept their word and which continue to operate in Putin’s Russia, the Yale University maintains the so-called „shame list”, which contains the names of companies that did not fulfill their declarations or did not announce them at all.
Deutschlandfunk / Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung / Okopress / Aleksandra Fedorska