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Julian Ryall

More than 200 Japanese companies still operating in Russia face growing uncertainty following Moscow’s seizure of three Western firms’ assets, amid deteriorating diplomatic relations.
The Kremlin announced on Friday that the assets of Swiss food giant Nestlé, French retailer Auchan and home improvement chain Lemana Pro had been transferred to Russian entity LEV Management under a decree signed a day earlier by President Vladimir Putin.
“These are unfriendly nations,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said while announcing the decision to introduce “external management”.
He added that the countries involved were either “actively involved in military actions against our country” or had “engaged in strikes by the Kyiv regime on our civilian and economic infrastructure”.
About 230 Japanese-affiliated companies continue to operate in Russia, according to the Japan External Trade Organisation, though many have frozen operations or halted new investments.

More than three-quarters of these companies expected to maintain a business presence in Russia for at least the next two years, a survey conducted in June by the organisation found.
“Japanese companies are going to be watching very closely what happens next, and they are going to be concerned,” said Yakov Zinberg, a professor of international relations at Tokyo’s Kokushikan University.
Japan-Russia ties have been in the doldrums since the Ukraine war began in 2022, with Tokyo joining other G7 nations in imposing broad economic and diplomatic sanctions.
While surveys indicated almost half of British, 33 per cent of Canadian and 27 per cent of US companies completely withdrew from Russia following the invasion, few Japanese firms followed suit – likely hoping for a swift end to the war, according to observers.
But tensions between Moscow and Tokyo have been ratcheting up in recent months.
Eisuke Mori, the speaker of Japan’s House of Representatives, visited Kyiv this month to meet President Volodymyr Zelensky, who invited Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi to visit the Ukrainian capital.
He condemned Russia’s invasion as “a barbaric act that shakes the international order and the values that the international community has built over decades”, in comments to Ukraine’s parliament.
It followed a high-profile visit last month by Putin to a chain of disputed islands north of Hokkaido that Tokyo protested against and Moscow summarily dismissed.
Russia later unveiled a statue depicting a Soviet soldier crushing a border marker bearing the symbol of Japan’s emperor.


Moscow would be closely watching the UN General Assembly in New York this week for a potential Zelensky-Takaichi meeting, said James Brown, an international-relations professor specialising in Russian affairs at Temple University’s Tokyo campus.
“Up until now, the Japanese side has been able to avoid a face-to-face meeting for any number of reasons, but it is going to be much more difficult for Takaichi to do that when they are both in New York and this is at the request of the Ukrainians,” he said.
“Not meeting Zelensky would not be a good image and would indicate that Takaichi is trying to distance herself from Ukraine.”
But agreeing to the meeting could prompt Russia to target Japanese companies, Brown said, adding that Tokyo would be “very wary about losing its stake” in Russian liquefied natural gas projects.
Japan held a 10 per cent stake in Russia’s Arctic LNG 2 project in northern Siberia and a 30 per cent stake in Sakhalin 1, north of Hokkaido, he said.
Concerns over energy security explained why Takaichi had been so “timid” in her dealings with Moscow, Brown said.

Yet closing down Japanese companies’ operations would also be “self-defeating” for Russia, he said.
“These businesses pay taxes and seizing them would cut off a significant amount of tax for the Russian government,” Brown said, adding that consumer backlash over the loss of popular brands would also pose a challenge.
Zinberg said he expected both sides to proceed with caution, even as they “keep complaining about the other”.
“Russia’s policy towards Japan is still rooted in old Soviet attitudes and their leaders are aware that they still need Japan,” he said. “The old approach was to try to drive a wedge between Japan and the US, and they are still following that approach.”
This Week in Asia contacted seven major Japanese companies operating in Russia for comment, including Panasonic, Olympus, Japan Tobacco and cosmetics firms Kao Corp and Shiseido, but had received no response at the time of publication.


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Moscow’s asset seizures unnerve Japanese companies in Russia

Customers shop at an Auchan supermarket in Moscow earlier this year. French retailer Auchan was among the Western brands whose assets were seized by the Kremlin last week. Photo: AFP

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov speaks to reports on the sidelines of the Brics summit in New Delhi on September 12. Photo: Sputnik/Reuters

An LNG tanker loads a cargo from the Sakhalin-2 project in the port of Prigorodnoye, Russia, in 2021. Photo: AP

Honour guards hold the national flags of Japan and Russia before a welcome ceremony for Sergei Shoigu in 2019, the last time a Russian defence minister visited Tokyo. Photo: AFP

Japan’s protest over Russian soldier statue aggravates ‘summer of tension’

The unveiling of a Soviet soldier smashing an imperial-era border marker bearing the emblem of the Japanese royal family in the Russian city of Khabarovsk has angered Tokyo. Photo: X/MFA Russia

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi on Monday. She said a monument in Russia depicting the destruction of Japan’s Chrysanthemum Crest was “completely unacceptable”. Photo: Kyodo

A 15-metre granite monument to the Soviet Union’s victory over Japan in 1945 was unveiled in the Russian city of Khabarovsk last week. Photo: X/MFA Russia

Russia summons Japan ambassador over disputed Kuril Islands row after Putin visit

Russian President Vladimir Putin during his visit to the Yasny fish processing complex on the Kuril Island of Iturup on Thursday. Photo: Sputnik / Gavriil Grigorov / Pool via Reuters

Putin meets residents as he visits the Kuril Island of Iturup on Thursday. Photo: Sputnik / Gavriil Grigorov / Pool via Reuters

Why Japan’s Russia outreach could fuel G7 concern over unity: ‘bad signal’

Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi listens to a question in the House of Councillors budget committee session at the National Diet in Tokyo on June 5. Photo: AFP

A tanker in waters off Imabari, Japan’s Ehime prefecture, carrying crude oil produced from the Sakhalin 2 oil and natural gas development project in the Russian Far East. Photo: Kyodo

A French police officer walks past G7 logos in Evian-les-Bains, eastern France, on Thursday, ahead of the G7 summit next week. Photo: AP

Russia’s military activity has Japan fearing a dual-front war

F-15J Eagle fighter aircraft of the Japan Air Self-Defence Force prepare for take-off at Chitose Air Base, Hokkaido prefecture, in 2017. Photo: AFP

Japan’s Defence Minister Shinjiro Koizumi holds a press conference on May 19. He has called Russia’s military posture around Japan “a cause for serious concern”. Photo: Kyodo

An F-15J Eagle fighter jet of the Japan Air Self-Defense Force at Chitose Air Base, Hokkaido prefecture, in 2017. Photo: AFP

A Japanese coastguard vessel and small boats sail alongside an activists’ fishing boat near the disputed Diaoyu Islands, which Tokyo administers and calls the Senkakus. Photo: AP

Russian MiG-31 fighter jets equipped with hypersonic “Kinzhal” ballistic missiles are seen in this still image taken from a handout video last year. Photo: Russia Defence Ministry Press Service/EPA

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The takeover of Swiss and French brands raises the spectre of retaliation against some 230 Japanese businesses still in Russia


The takeover of Swiss and French brands raises the spectre of retaliation against some 230 Japanese businesses still in Russia.


Moscow’s asset seizures unnerve Japanese companies in Russia

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}The takeover of Swiss and French brands raises the spectre of retaliation against some 230 Japanese businesses still in Russia

The takeover of Swiss and French brands raises the spectre of retaliation against some 230 Japanese businesses still in Russia