Russian Executives Urge Putin to Curb Nationalization Surge Amid Economic Pressures

Russian business leaders have urged President Vladimir Putin to take action against a surge of state asset confiscations impacting factories, ports, and major companies valued at over 4 trillion rubles (approximately $43 billion), as reported by the business daily Kommersant.

During their annual year-end meeting with the president, executives presented a letter detailing their concerns, as stated by Alexander Shokhin, the head of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP).

Shokhin mentioned that they had initially raised this issue with Putin in their earlier meeting in 2023. At that time, the president acknowledged the problems and indicated that they needed to be resolved. However, no tangible actions followed, he added.

“We have now delivered him a letter. We are looking for a resolution,” Shokhin was quoted as saying. “We desire a clear framework that eliminates ambiguity for the courts.”

He noted that business leaders are increasingly worried that alleged infringements on “intangible rights and freedoms”—such as the right to a satisfactory standard of living—are being used to justify nationalization.

“At present, the most straightforward method to deprivatize an asset is to claim that citizens’ rights to a decent living are being compromised,” he stated. “This is interpreted as a public interest that the state is entitled to uphold, even in cases where no individual has asserted personal injury. Essentially, this allows for any property to be seized by the state without compensation.”

Business leaders maintain that if the government deems it necessary to seize an asset, it should do so through a purchase rather than confiscation.

“If the state finds something necessary, then very well, nationalize it—but compensate the owner for it,” Shokhin remarked.

Putin has consistently asserted that there would be no reevaluation of the mass privatizations of the 1990s, which transferred control of significant economic sectors to a limited number of oligarchs.

He reaffirmed this stance following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, including at an RSPP congress in April 2024 and again at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in June 2025.

Despite these promises, the frequency of asset seizures has increased dramatically.

In 2022, the state reclaimed around 100 companies with a combined worth of 1.3 trillion rubles, according to the Prosecutor General’s Office. By 2024, this figure rose to 2.4 trillion rubles, and by 2025 it surpassed 4 trillion.

Among the assets taken into state ownership are Russia’s largest car dealership Rolf, the Chelyabinsk Electrometallurgical Plant, gold miner Yuzhuralzoloto, grain dealer Rodnye Polya, warehouse firm Raven Russia, lead producer Dalpolimetall, Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport, food conglomerate KDV Group, and ports in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Murmansk, Kaliningrad, and the St. Petersburg Oil Terminal.

The government is hastening asset seizures to address budget deficits resulting from Western sanctions and an economic downturn, noted economist Yevgeny Nadorshin.

Under a new law, state-owned enterprises are required to contribute 50% of the market value of assets acquired through property redistribution to the federal budget, he pointed out.