Putin Seizes Nestle and Auchan's Russian Assets as Kremlin Holds a Preordained Wartime Election

Russia began three days of voting Friday, September 18, for its State Duma, the first wartime parliamentary election since the 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Nobody expects a surprise. United Russia, the Kremlin's dominant party, is set to keep its overwhelming majority, according to Boston 25 News and Arab News, which both reported that analysts see the election as a mobilization exercise, not a real contest.

The Kremlin made sure of that ahead of time. The only party willing to criticize the war was removed from the ballot entirely, per both outlets. Several anti-war politicians have been imprisoned or forced to flee the country. For the first time, residents of four Ukrainian regions Moscow illegally annexed are voting in the election too. Ukraine has called the entire vote illegal.

Removing the one dissenting party from the ballot and jailing critics isn't vote-count fraud. No source alleges ballots were stuffed, but it is the Kremlin deciding who gets to run before anyone casts a vote. The practical effect is a managed outcome, not a free election.

Approval Slipping, Economy Straining

Putin isn't operating from a position of total comfort. The independent Levada Center found his approval rating at 76% in August, down from 87% in September 2025, according to Boston 25 News. Still high. Still dropping.

Ukraine's long-range drone campaign this summer hit Russian oil refineries and logistics hard, per both Boston 25 and Arab News. A severe fuel crisis peaked in June, eased briefly, then returned in August. Attacks on warehouses run by online retailers Wildberries and Ozon wiped out merchandise for hundreds of thousands of individual sellers.

The government has raised taxes and leaned harder on domestic borrowing to control a growing budget deficit, both outlets reported. Andrei Klepach, chief economist at the state-owned VEB.RF bank, said at a seminar: "We won't win the competition in this war of attrition. Our costs are mounting. I'm almost sure that we will come to face a social crisis." He was dismissed the day after those comments were published.

That's the price of speaking out inside Putin's system right now, even from a state bank's own chief economist.

Nestle and Auchan Now Under Kremlin Control

Two days before voting started, Putin signed a presidential decree placing the Russian assets of Swiss food giant Nestle and French retailer Auchan under temporary state administration, according to the Times of India. It's believed to be the Kremlin's largest takeover of foreign corporate assets since at least 2024, per The Independent.

The assets, including two Nestle entities, Nestle Russia and Nestle Kuban, along with FM Logistics and the former Leroy Merlin business now operating as Lemana Pro, were handed to a Russian company called L.E.V. Management, the Times of India reported.

Nestle said Friday it is "assessing the situation and its options" and is "committed to taking all necessary steps to protect its rights and ensure continuity of business operations in the interests of all stakeholders, particularly its employees," per its statement carried by The Independent. Nestle runs six manufacturing sites in Russia employing roughly 7,000 people, generating about 2 billion Swiss francs (£1.81 billion) a year, about 2% of the company's global sales.

More than 1,000 foreign firms left Russia after the 2022 invasion, though some, like Mondelez and PepsiCo, stayed, per The Independent. Russia has used this temporary-administration mechanism, created by a 2023 decree, against other Western firms before, including Danone, Carlsberg, Stella Artois and Budweiser maker AB InBev, according to the Times of India. Those companies' Russian operations were later sold off.

From Moscow's side, this fits a pattern the Kremlin frames as protecting Russian economic interests against companies from "unfriendly" countries, a designation Russia created in response to Western sanctions freezing Russian state and oligarch assets abroad. Whether you buy that framing or see it as straightforward expropriation, the practical effect is the same: foreign companies operating in Russia have less legal certainty than they did a year ago, and the list of seized firms keeps growing.

The Bigger Picture

A separate analysis published by CommStrader argues that Western sanctions since 2022 have eliminated the Russian elite's old habit of hedging, keeping money in London, sending kids to Swiss schools, while staying loyal to the Kremlin at home. That piece is framed as commentary, not reporting, but it lines up with what's visible on the ground this week: a rigged-in-advance election, a dismissed economist who said the quiet part out loud, and a European food giant now negotiating with a government that just took its factories.

Nestle hasn't said whether it will pursue legal action, international arbitration, or simply write off the Russian business. Auchan, which chose to stay in Russia after 2022 like Danone and Carlsberg did until their assets were seized, hasn't issued a public statement on the seizure. Final Duma results are expected once the three days of voting conclude.