By Sergei Doubine & Russian Euronews
Published on
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday placed the operations of Japan Tobacco International (JTI) under state control, ordering their transfer by decree to a state-linked holding company, AO Promyshlennye aktivy.
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The order concerns JTI plants in St. Petersburg, Rostov-on-Don, Lipetsk and Leningrad regions.
The company employs around 4,000 people in Russia and holds around 40% of the Russian cigarette market, making it the country’s largest manufacturer.
Its Russian product range includes international brands Winston, Glamour, Camel, LD and Sobranie, as well as domestic brands Pyotr I, Russky Stil and Donskoi Tabak.
JTI, headquartered in Geneva, entered the Russian market in 1999 and acquired local producer Donskoi Tabak in 2018.
JT Group has invested $4.6 billion in its Russian operations over more than 20 years, according to a company profile updated to November 2025.
After Russia’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the company did not leave the country but suspended further investments in Russian production and marketing.
The seizure follows Russia’s arrest last month of Yuki Imai, a journalist with the Japanese newspaper Hokkaido Shimbun, on espionage charges.
The Russian Foreign Ministry has accused Tokyo of systematically using journalists to gather intelligence inside the country. Japan has rejected this accusation.
Japan, which has a long-standing dispute with Russia over the Chishima Islands in the Pacific Ocean, has also joined some Western sanctions over the all-out war in Ukraine.
JTI joins a list of European companies whose Russian assets were transferred to state management under the same mechanism, including Swiss food group Nestlé, French retailers Auchan and Leroy Merlin and German retailer Metro.
Moscow presented the external management process as a response to sanctions imposed after the 2022 invasion.
Restrictions introduced for companies from states deemed “hostile” include caps on dividend payments, which lock in profits in Russia, and significant fees on the sale of Russian business assets.
Putin said on October 1 that this mechanism also gives Russia the opportunity to prepare retaliatory measures against any possible future nationalization of Russian assets abroad, while leaving open the possibility of returning control to the former owners if “conditions improve.”
External management involves the appointment of state-linked directors to manage a company’s Russian assets without the consent or compensation of the foreign owner, thereby transferring effective control to the Russian state, regardless of which retains nominal ownership.
Additional sources • AFP
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