Corporate involvement in atrocity crimes in Ukraine

Abstract

Since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, corporations have come under scrutiny for their business operations in or with Russia. For many corporations, continuing operations in or with Russia meant a risk to be contributing to the commission of Russian atrocity crimes such as war crimes and crimes against humanity. Based on accusations against corporations for business conduct that can be linked to the commission of atrocities, this article offers a criminological analysis of corporate involvement in atrocities in this context. It first looks at how corporations have allegedly been involved and proposes a continuum of involvement ranging from the most distant to the most proximate ways corporations have been linked to atrocity crimes. Then, the article uses a theoretical framework to explain and understand corporate involvement in atrocity crimes to answer the question of why corporations have become involved in Russian atrocity crimes in Ukraine. It is concluded that profit motivations can lead to both the decision to stay and the decision to leave, and that over time, coercion and lack of opportunity to leave Russia are part of the explanations of continued involvement. War has restricted the opportunity structures for some companies but opened new opportunities for others. Moreover, sanctions law has not been effective in halting all exports and imports from Russia, existing soft-law initiatives are not reflected in corporate decision making, and while public condemnation has been strong, this was not mirrored by market reactions.

Introduction

Immediately after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, in February 2022, multinational corporations doing business in or with Russia have, to various degrees, needed to evaluate their business activities and decide how to adapt to the newly emerging realities. Many, including president Zelenskyy (WEF, 2022) urged corporations to cease all business operations related to Russia. Moreover, subsequent coordinated economic sanctions restricted various legal ways to do business with Russia (Bown, 2023), at least in part to pressure Russia to stop its aggression, isolate the country, and limit Russia's capacity for warfare. Russia's invasion and the Russo–Ukraine war are illegal under international law (Kelly, 2023) and Russia has committed atrocity crimes such as war crimes and crimes against humanity, including torture, sexual violence, indiscriminate bombings of civilians, and deportations (OHCHR, 2025). For many corporations, continuing operations in or with Russia meant a risk to be contributing to the commission of these atrocity crimes: continuing business in or with Russia could potentially fund and support Putin and the Kremlin's war effort. Moreover, businesses face risks relating to a further breakdown of the rule of law in Russia.

Corporate involvement in atrocity crimes is a newly emerging field of criminological study that considers how corporations play roles in the commission of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, and how such involvement can be understood (Huisman et al., 2022; van Baar, 2024, 2025). This article represents a context-study contributing to this field. The context of the Russo–Ukraine war is interesting because post-Soviet capitalism resulted in a high presence of foreign corporations in Russia, now confronted with their host state becoming a perpetrator of atrocity crimes. Of the 48,000 multinational companies operating in Russia pre-invasion, 75% were from countries that Russia deems ‘unfriendly’ because they have used their regulatory authorities against Russia, for example, by imposing sanctions (Wellhausen and Zhu, 2025: 5). Western widespread condemnation of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine has resulted in unprecedented attention for – and pressure on – multinational corporations to address risks of becoming involved in atrocity crimes.

After conceptualising corporate involvement in atrocity crimes and addressing sources, case selection and limitations, this article first addresses the question of how multinational corporations have become involved in Russian atrocity crimes in Ukraine. This results in a description and analysis of a continuum of involvement, which are then linked to the categorisation of corporate involvement in human rights abuses proposed by Clapham and Jerbi (2001). Second, it explores the question why corporations become involved, using an existing theoretical framework developed to understand corporate involvement in atrocity crimes (van Baar, 2025), examining corporate motivations, available opportunity structures and available mechanisms of control. The conclusion summarises the main findings by answering the dual research question how and why corporations have become involved in Russian atrocity crimes.

Corporate involvement in atrocity crimes: Concept and theoretical framework

Corporate involvement in atrocity crimes occurs when a private, for-profit organisation, through its conduct, has a link to the commission of atrocity crimes (van Baar, 2025). Corporate involvement will be assumed when reliable and substantiated allegations established such a link. Atrocity crimes are large-scale, collective and organised acts of violence committed against civilians or protected categories of combatants that occur within specific political, ideological and societal contexts (Holá et al., 2022; Kuperberg and Hagan, 2022). The term was developed to overcome the constraints of legalistic and political debates about classification such as war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide (Scheffer, 2006) as three separate and legally delineated crimes. It has since been widely adopted by scholars and institutions such as the United Nations (Holá et al., 2022). ‘Atrocity crimes’ draws attention to the harms and adopts a collective view of the mass-violence that includes social and historical understandings. The term thus includes genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes but supersedes the legal definitions of these crimes by aggregating the core crimes into an inclusive category (Karstedt, 2013), while atrocity crime as a phenomenon remains ‘criminal’ (Holá et al., 2022: 3) as is consistent with a social harm perspective (Michalowski, 2009).

While some links between corporate conduct and atrocity crimes do blatantly breach existing legal and regulatory provisions, this study's definition of involvement is not rooted in a legal framework. Without a coherent legal framework defining how corporations should act regarding atrocity crimes (Joseph and Kyriakakis, 2023), a valid legalistic definition of corporate involvement in atrocity crimes cannot be formulated. Legal definitions of aiding and abetting, joint perpetration or joint criminal enterprise are available, but their applicability and definitions differ widely between domestic or international jurisdictions (Bernaz, 2016). Many jurisdictions, including that of the International Criminal Court, do not extend to legal persons (i.e. corporations). Even if we would establish a legal definition, researchers cannot act as judges, and verdicts or other definitive legal rulings on corporate involvement in atrocity crimes are extremely scarce. This article thus explicitly does not aim to conclude whether corporations can or should be held legally accountable for their roles in atrocity crimes. Epistemically, using a legalistic definition would result in a bias, because criminological study of social harm should not be limited by what has been criminalised by law or otherwise regulated. Doing so would confine us to the hegemonic power structures that decide what is permissible or not (Michalowski, 2009: 307). Given a documented lack of regulation of corporate human rights abuses (Joseph and Kyriakakis, 2023; van Baar, 2024), the current regulatory framework cannot define the phenomenon of corporate involvement in atrocity crimes. To overcome this, the analysis is based on reliable and documented accusations against corporations asserting links between corporate conduct and the commission of atrocity crimes, as will be explained further in the next section.

A theoretical framework to explain and understand why corporations become involved in atrocity crimes has been developed by van Baar (2025), based on the analysis of corporate involvement in three contexts: Nazi Germany, the Apartheid regime and war between state- and rebel forces in the DRC. The outline of the framework presented in the next section follows Coleman's (1987, 1995) and Kramer and Michalowski's (2006) notion that for corporate crime and corporate harms to exist, motivation and opportunity must come together, with weak or absent control.

Motivation. A corporation's involvement in atrocity crimes is rarely direct, so motivation is usually not directed at (involvement in) the commission of atrocity crimes. Instead, involvement tends to be a ‘by-product’ of corporate activity while motivation is directed at other goals. To operationalise ‘motivation’ at the level of the corporation, we must examine corporate goals. The motivation of corporations is often seen as emerging from a ‘culture of competition’ (Coleman, 1987, 1995) as promoted by the social structure of industrialised societies. Such cultures prioritise wealth, growth and success, and expects corporations to maximise profits for their owners or shareholders. However, specific context where atrocity crimes are committed can also influence goals, through mutually beneficial goals (for both the corporation and the perpetrator state), through coercion by the state, or because of ideology.

Opportunity should not be seen as just the opportunity to become involved in atrocity crimes. Instead, it is a course of action, among other courses of action, that may result in such involvement. Potential courses of action are determined, on the one hand, by the political economy in which corporations operate and, on the other hand, by the characteristics or abilities of the corporation. The political economy determines economic and market circumstances and state policies, both of which become impacted when a state commits atrocity crimes. In strong states, oppression and war tends to restrict some business opportunities (international trade becomes difficult, consumer markets tend to shrink) but increase others (such as government contracts). These new opportunities tend to have a higher risk of involvement in atrocity crimes. Yet risk consists not only of opportunities that lead to involvement in atrocity crimes but also of the restriction of alternative courses of action that would not. Three characteristics of the corporation are important for the potential courses of action and whether they may result in involvement in atrocity crimes: the capacity to fulfil the demands of perpetrators of atrocity crimes, the capability to find alternative courses of action that would not lead to involvement and the capacity to deal with negative consequences (i.e. condemnation) of involvement.

Control has the potential to prevent or end corporate activity resulting in corporate involvement in atrocity crimes, or, afterwards, establish accountability. Control can be formal when official regulations such as legal or administrative procedures are adopted. Control can be semi-formal when non-binding ‘soft law’ norms are used by authorities in official procedures. Finally, control can be informal, when investors, civil society organisations or the media pressure corporations by criticising their activities. Informal control also includes self-regulation by the business sector.

Sources, case selection and limitations

The primary sources for this article consist of allegations available in the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre (BHRRC) database on corporate links to the war in Ukraine (20 February 2022–9 October 2023). The BHRRC is a platform that, amongst other things, functions as an information hub for corporate human rights violations, with a database of newspaper articles, NGO reports, government reports and various sources on business and human rights issues. Each item in the database is labelled with the country concerned, the type of human rights violation, the name of the corporation and other relevant tags, such as whether the item contains an allegation. For the period analysed, 911 items with allegations against corporations for human rights violations in Ukraine were available. Many contained allegations of involvement in war crimes and crimes against humanity. These include first-time and repeated allegations, against a single corporation or a group of corporations or even sectors or supply chains. Further queries via Nexis Uni and Google Scholar were used to find additional information on identified cases and issues. Literature searches further identified relevant academic research on corporate activity and the Russo–Ukrainian War.

Cases were selected for analysis when accusations against corporations about involvement in atrocity crimes were made by civil society organisations (including NGOs), journalists or scholars deemed reliable by the researcher and substantiated with data and/or other evidence. When the allegation pertained to a breach of economic sanctions the case was only selected when evidence was provided that linked a corporation to the commission of atrocities. In many cases, other reasonings were used to establish such links. All selected cases were included in the analysis, but not all cases are featured in the article, due to space constraints.

This article has several limitations. First, the covered context is recent and ongoing. Thus, unlike historical cases, triangulation of allegations is sometimes not possible and important information may still be undiscovered. Furthermore, Western and North American reaction to Russia's illegal full-scale invasion of Ukraine have been so strong and unanimous that this context to be quite extraordinary compared to other contexts and can thus not be generalised. The article attempts to somewhat counter the bias from heightened levels of attention to this context's corporate links to atrocity crimes, by fore-fronting and evaluating the reasonings by those that make the allegations and juxtaposing the findings to other contexts of corporate involvement in atrocity crimes as well as existing categorizations of corporate involvement in atrocity crimes. A final limitation consists of a focus on European (including the United Kingdom) and North American corporations in this article. This focus is a result of many allegations being directed at corporations from these areas and limited access to similar allegations in languages other than English, German, French and Dutch. Importantly, information exclusively published in Ukrainian or Russian was not included. Moreover, corporate involvement in Russian atrocity crimes in Ukraine by corporations from countries such as China or India are likely to remain underexposed. Similarly, the involvement of Russian corporations is underrepresented in this study, due to the strategic focus of Western civil society and media on the activities of Western corporations.

How are corporations involved in atrocities in Ukraine: A continuum of involvement

The full-scale invasion of Ukraine that expanded the conflict that had started in 2014 with the annexation of Crimea (Kelly, 2023) sparked unprecedented political and public outrage in Europe and North America and within 10 days, Russia was named the world's most sanctioned country (Wadhams, 2022). The circle of corporations that have been criticised for their business conduct in or with Russia, however, is much larger than what these sanctions cover. More than in any other recent conflict, corporations are being criticised for virtually all Russia-related conduct. For example, when Georgian Airways announced it would resume transfer flights to Russia end of May 2023, this was met with protests in Tbilisi and a call for boycotting the airline by the Georgian President (Bloomberg, 2023). Such condemnation of corporate activity stems from the notion that Russia and Russians should be isolated and inconvenienced wherever possible.

For this article, corporations are seen as having a link with Russian atrocities when there is a reliable and substantiated accusation against them that they fund or materially support Russia's warfare and, thus, commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity. In what follows, I present the ways corporations have been involved in atrocity crimes by Russia, and describing relevant patterns and developments, I place them on a continuum that ranges from most distant involvement with a general link to atrocities to most proximate involvement with the most specific link to atrocities.

Paying taxes

Since the February 2022 full-scale invasion, some corporations moved fast, letting the world know that they would divest from Russia and leave. Hundreds of companies such as IKEA, Nokia, Vodafone, IBM, Etsy, and Deutsche Bank have withdrawn from Russia (Yale School of Management, n.d.). At the same time, many corporations stalled their exit, stayed active in Russia, or even dug in, increasing their activities. The NGO B4Ukraine and the Kyiv School of Economics (KSE) report that foreign companies still active in Russia paid up to 6.3 billion dollars in profit taxes to Russia during the tax year of 2022, with the figure rising to 6.4 billion in 2023 (B4Ukraine and KSE, 2025). In addition, companies active in Russia pay income tax on employees’ salaries, social insurance payments and VAT, but not enough data is available to estimate these.

NGOs have accused a large number of corporations for staying active in Ukraine. The Ukraine government chose to focus extensively on the way multinationals remained active in Russia and kept an up-to-date list of ‘International Sponsors of War’ that listed large, multinational corporations that allegedly contribute to Russia's warfare by paying taxes (as well as other corporations that were involved in other ways). In March 2024, Ukraine announced it would retract this list, after pressure from multiple countries including Austria, France and China (Balmforth and O’Donnell, 2024). In total, 12 ‘blacklists’ with corporations active in Russia have existed (Wellhausen and Zhu, 2025). Although KSO and Yale researchers spoke of an ‘exodus’ of companies from Russia (Sonnenfeld et al., 2023), other researchers have concluded that only 5–13% of corporations have completely left Russia since the 2022 invasion (Evenett and Pisani, 2023).

Among the corporations that have remained active or are still active in Russia, several patterns and developments can be observed. First, some corporations announced they would leave but nonetheless remained active, or even extended their activities. Second, some corporations took the opportunity to fill gaps left by others leaving. Third, corporations tried to justify remaining active in Russia. Fourth, all corporations that have remained active have over time seen their opportunities to exit Russia diminish extensively, while the threat of nationalisation of business activities increased. Finally, all corporations that remain active must adhere to Russian laws and thus fulfil mobilisation tasks.

Corporations that after the February 2022 invasion announced that they would suspend Russian operations but still stayed active include Heineken (Van Beemen, 2023), Coca-Cola (Dixon, 2023) and Shell (Sonnenfeld and Tian, 2023). These and various corporations seemed to have relied on ‘the power of the press release’, announcing the intention to leave but silently shifting business activities. Heineken, for example, announced in March 2023 that it would exit Russia, citing Russia's ‘unjustified attack’ and ‘the tragedy in Ukraine’ (Heineken, 2022). While selling its Russian assets would take some time, Heineken committed to no new investments in Russia and to not take any profit from its subsidiary. However, in 2022, Heineken launched 61 new products and saw its Russian profit triple (Van Beemen, 2023). The taxes paid by Heineken Russia in 2022 remains unknown, but in 2019 Russian tax authorities received almost 400 million euros. In August 2023, Heineken announced its Russian brewery had been sold to Arnest Group, a Russian packaging and cosmetics company, for a ‘symbolic price’ of 1 dollar.

As part of the second pattern identified, Heineken was an example of a corporation that was able to fill gaps left by others, developing a stout beer after the brewer of Guinness has left (Van Beemen, 2023). Similarly, the French retail chain Auchan stepped into gaps left by Western suppliers vacating the Russian market (Sonnenfeld and Tian, 2023). Third, corporations have tried to justify their continued presence in Russia by claiming a need to protect employees, as Benneton did, or by claiming to provide medically essential products for humanitarian purposes, such as Unilever. Unilever condemned Russia's war and maintained it suspended all imports and exports with Russia except ‘everyday essential food and hygiene products’ made in Russia itself. However, the company also continues to sell ice cream and luxury shampoo and contributed $331 million in taxes in 2022 (Butler, 2023). In October 2024, Unilever announced the sale of its Russian subsidiary, also to Arnest Group, for an undisclosed price.

It became increasingly difficult for corporations to exit Russia. Since December 2022, Russia requires a ‘voluntary 10% departure tax’ and ‘an understanding’ that companies would sell at a 50% discount. This way, the Russian state still profits when corporations quit paying taxes to Russia, exposing corporations to the criticism that leaving Russia – rather than staying – supports the war effort. Moreover, asset sales must be approved by a Kremlin commission, making the process of selling business assets a very long one. If a company is owned by an organisation or individual from Russia's list of ‘unfriendly countries’, the sale proceeds cannot leave Russia so that foreign companies ‘understand what they are losing’ when they leave Russia (Moscow Times, 2023a).

Since mid-2023, Russia began nationalising corporations such as Carlsberg and Danone. In July 2023, Carlsberg's subsidiary Baltika was transferred to the Russian Federal Agency for State Property Management prompting Carlsberg to terminate Baltika's licences. The Kremlin responded by arresting two of Baltika's (ex-) executives in November 2023, for allegedly stealing Baltika's intellectual property (Speed and Weaver, 2023). By the end of 2023, many corporations still active in Russia virtually lost the opportunity to sell and face nationalisation risks (Dixon, 2023).

Corporations that continue to operate in Russia need to abide by Russian law. One such law, Article 9 of Federal Law No. 31-FZ, obliges corporations to support Russia's military mobilisation by conducting military registration of the staff, assisting in delivering military summons to their employees, ensure the delivery of equipment to assembly points or military units, and provide buildings, communications, land plots, transport, and information (B4Ukraine, 2022). Austrian Bank Raiffeisen faced this reality when in October 2022, a Russian employee of this bank was killed in Ukraine, after being mobilised. Oilfield servicer Schlumbergers has already seen more than 9000 of its Russian employees receive draft notices through work (Hampton, 2022).

Corporations with continued presence in Russia after the 2022 full-scale invasion fall on the ‘most distant involvement’ end of the continuum of involvement because the link between the corporate conduct of paying taxes and/or other fees to the Russian state – because of being active in Russia – and the atrocity crimes being committed by Russia is distant and general in nature. Although in 2025 37% of Russia's total expenditure was military (Cooper, 2025: 9), tax money spent on the war effort cannot be traced back to specific corporations. This, however, does not refute the argument put forward in accusations against these corporations: that foreign corporations remaining active in Russia fund Russia's war effort. Moreover, when employees become conscripted to the Russian army this may move involvement towards more proximate involvement on the continuum.

A parallel can be drawn to the way continuing business operations in Apartheid South Africa were criticised from the 1970s onwards (Van Baar, 2019). Because of the centrality of the commission of atrocity crimes to the way the state operates (i.e. the centrality of the ‘special military operation in Ukraine’ for the Russian state) all business that fund that state become definable as involvement in atrocity crimes. We can also link this way of involvement to Clapham and Jerbi's concept of silent complicity (2001). They define silent complicity as not using the corporation's influence in the circumstances of systematic or continuous human rights abuses. Wettstein has added that ‘under certain circumstances, otherwise innocent bystanders (i.e. corporations) may turn into accomplices by not speaking out against the wrongdoings done to human beings; in such cases, their silence is to be interpreted as moral support or encouragement for the perpetrator or at least as a sign of acquiescence’ (2012: 36–37). These circumstances include to what extent an actor has sufficient influence over a perpetrator's behaviour. Only when speaking out could reasonably be expected to have an impact on the perpetrator the label of silent complicity can apply, according to Wettstein. In the repressive context of Russia, criticism is punished quite severely, and the Kremlin reportedly punishes corporations for being from ‘enemy countries’. In Wettstein's (2012: 38) words, the primary perpetrator does not operate in a position of (partial) dependence relative to the corporation, perhaps except for (some) corporations in the energy sector. In short, the scenario of staying a ‘speaking up’ to have an impact is not very likely, and ‘raising a voice’ can only happen through economic action, that is, leaving. This may of course also fund the Russian state, which now has taken over millions of dollars of assets. Ending silent complicity by leaving, moreover, has become increasingly difficult since December 2022 as Russian policies have since locked corporations in.

Importing goods

Corporate sourcing from Russia has also been linked to Russia's atrocity crimes in Ukraine, with the argument that such imports fund Russia's war effort. For example, European corporations have continued sourcing critical raw materials such as titanium, nickel, and aluminium from Russia. Russian Vsmpo Avisma (Vsmpo) sold at least $208 billion worth of titanium to European corporations such as Airbus between February 2022 and July 2023 (Hansens et al., 2023). Vsmpo is owned by Rostec, a Russian state-owned defence conglomerate that is Russia's main arms producer and a major supplier for the Kremlin. The Rostec's CEO is chairman at Vsmpo and a close Putin ally. Similarly, diamond, nickel, and aluminium exports to the European Union (EU) account for substantial proportions of revenues of Russian corporations headed by Putin allies (Hansens et al., 2023; Ukhorskiy, 2023). EU manufacturers are still so dependent on Russian critical raw materials that sanctions do not (yet) cover these imports, but companies and individuals related to this trade have become sanctioned entities (Bown, 2023).

Some have argued that the war in Ukraine was only a possible course of action for Russia because of wealth obtained from selling fossil fuels, including oil and gas (Schiffer, 2022). After the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the EU's reliance on Russia dropped sharply. But the funding of that invasion of course happened before 2022; the 2014 annexation of Crimea was not taken as a warning sign and European countries continued to rely on Russian energy. Since 2014, Russia spent energy revenues not on public services and development but on increasing military capacity. Due to Europe's reliance on Russian energy, their imports (and thus funding) continued after the full-scale invasion.

Additionally, corporations that left Russia have continued to trade in Russian oil and gas. Global Witness revealed (in multiple instances) that Shell was still trading in Russian gas despite the company's claims that it would stop dealing with Russia on 8 March 2022 (Global Witness, 2023a). Global Witness has also accused French energy company TotalEnergies of continuing to buy Russian Liquefied gas, as the second-largest buyer of Russian LNG in the first half of 2023 (over 10% of Russian shipments). While this is not in violation of European sanctions due to exemptions, the company continues to send ‘funds to an aggressor that has caused so much misery in Ukraine and threatened Europe's security … they provide critical funds to Russia's war machine’ according to Global Witness (2023b).

Corporations importing critical raw materials and resources from Russia, usually at the state's direction or request, also fall on the ‘most distant involvement’ end of the continuum of involvement because their funding of Russian warfare also cannot be traced to a specific military spending or specific attacks. They are also non-earmarked types of funding. Funding war through importing critical materials, diamonds, oil and gas is, to an extent reminiscent of the ‘conflict minerals’ that were seen as funding the warring parties in the DRC and the Great Lakes Region (Van Baar, 2019). An important difference is that Russia as a powerful state does not have to engage in a war about those resources (even though it does have interest Ukraine's natural resources). Still, the income from natural resources makes up a large part of Russian gross domestic product, with estimates that Russia's revenues from EU imports are as high as 21.1 billion Euro, exceeding the EU's aid to Ukraine (CREA, 2025). This can hardly be seen as a form of silent complicity (Clapham and Jerbi, 2001) but instead is a form of dependent complicity.

Supplying goods

Various corporations have been accused of supplying goods and services to Russia linking them to commission of atrocity crimes in Ukraine. TotalEnergies allegedly supplied jet fuel to Russian warplanes from its Siberian gas field (Termokarstovoye), part-owned by TotalEnergies (Global Witness, 2022). This allegation, based on commercially available rail freight data, contradicts Total's claims that its joint venture operations had no links to the military operations by Russia in Ukraine. The jet fuel was traced to bases for Sukhoi Su-34 fighter bombers used for the indiscriminate bombing of civilian areas. Late August 2022, following the jet fuel allegations, TotalEnergies sold its 49% stake in the Siberian gas field to Russian Energy producer Novatek. The company remains active in the Yamal liquified natural gas plant and the Arctic LNG project unlike its competitors Shell, BP and Equinor, which have all left Russia.

Several other corporations have been accused of exporting goods to Russia that are used in Russia's warfare. Most such goods fall under US or European (and other) sanctions that cover dual-use goods, military equipment, and military technology and thus consist of sanction violations (Bown, 2023). Dual-use goods include, for example, microchips, semiconductors and advanced electronics and electrical components that can be used in weapon systems such as helicopters, drones, missiles, etc. Such products and parts, however, continue to reach Russia despite sanctions (Shmagun et al., 2025). For example, customs data has shown that $139 million worth of microchips from US companies Texas Instruments and Analogue Devices were shipped to Russia between March and late November 2022 (Weiss, 2023). This was done in violation of US sanctions mostly through China and Hong Kong, which don’t have sanctions against Russia. The US manufacturing and technology corporation Haas Automation has been accused of selling computer numerical control machines to Russia despite sanctions and supplying spare parts for such machines via a Chinese company and a former distributor, Abamet (Ostrovsky, 2023). Such machines are used to produce parts via complicated robotic and computer-controlled manufacturing processes. Haas Automation has denied the allegations, claiming that business ties with Abamet have been severed and that the Haas machines reaching Russia must be resales of some of the 200,000 Haas machines currently in use around the world (Haas, n.d.). Supply of dual-use goods by other companies also went through the Netherlands, Germany, Lithuania, Estonia, and Finland, which do have sanctions in place. Since February 2022, businesspeople around the world have stepped in, to broker deals between large ‘Western’ manufacturers such as Texas Instruments, and sanctioned Russian businesses, state corporations and Russian government agencies such as the FSB (Stecklow et al., 2022).

Supplying goods and services, especially when these goods can be used for military purposes, is more proximate on the continuum of involvement because the supply of certain goods materially supports Russia's war effort and therefore the link between corporate conduct and atrocities is closer than in the two ways of involvement described previously. The involvement will be more proximate for corporations exporting dual-use products, as these could also be used for non-military purposes. Some of the cases in which corporations provide goods and services that link to the commission of atrocity crimes mirror the ways corporations have provided military technology and equipment to Apartheid South Africa (van Vuuren, 2017) or Libya (Sonne and Coker, 2011). This type of involvement might fall into Clapham and Jerbi's (2001) category of ‘beneficial complicity’, because companies benefit financially from supplying goods. However, it cannot be ruled out that some corporations knowingly assist Russia in their warfare and crimes against Ukraine, which would be situated more towards the proximate involvement end of the continuum and would constitute ‘direct complicity’ in Clapham and Jerbi's terms.

Providing private military services

The war in Ukraine has not only been fought by the Russian army; private military corporations (PMCs) such as Wagner Group have carried out important war tasks in which its contractors were direct perpetrators of atrocity crimes. The Wagner Group is an internationally operating business with activities in, for example, the Central African Republic, Libya, Mali, and Sudan.

German intelligence services uncovered that Wagner Group mercenaries played a leading role in the Bucha massacre in March 2022 (McFate, 2022). Wagner Group fighters have been indicted by Ukrainian prosecutors for the systematic torture and murder of civilians in Ukraine, that is war crimes (Tondo et al., 2022). Two former contractors have confessed, on video, how they murdered prisoners of war and civilians (including the elderly and children) as well as their own colleagues when they refused to continue fighting (Melkozerova, 2023).

Like other PMCs, such as Blackwater, the Wagner Group operated in close cooperation with the state that hired them, in conditions of lawlessness. Russia has been able to outsource some of its dangerous and controversial operations to the Wagner Group before 2014 leading to a condition of plausible deniability (CSIS, 2020). The end of Wagner's role in the war in Ukraine, after the Wagner Group rebellion in June 2023 and the death of its leader Yevgeny Prigozhin a month later, did not end the use of contractors in that war: Nepali contractors were recruited to serve in the Russian Army (Sharma and Gettleman, 2023) and Gazprom's internal security forces serve alongside the Russian army as a PMC (Jack and Gavin, 2023).

Unsurprisingly, the involvement of private military companies falls on the proximate involvement end of the continuum. This involvement is reminiscent of the activities of Blackwater during the ‘War on Terror’ (Scahill, 2008) and the actions of Executive Outcomes in Sierra Leone (Barlow, 2007). Also in those cases, an entrepreneur with close connections to the state (e.g. Eric Prince, the CEO of Blackwater) was paid handsomely to fight in conflicts that matched their own ideological convictions. In Clapham and Jerbi's categorisation, this is a clear example of ‘direct involvement’, which requires intentional participation and knowledge of foreseeable harmful effects. While accusations against other Russian companies were underrepresented in the sample of accusations against corporations for involvement in atrocity crimes, the proximate involvement of the Wagner group still sparked NGO and journalistic outrage.

Why do corporations become involved in Russian atrocity crimes in Ukraine?

Motivational aspects

When corporations were forced to re-evaluate their business operation in Russia – and decide whether to stay, curtail their operations, or leave – their profit-related goals could steer them in two directions. Leaving, on the one hand, meant abandoning investments, assets and employees, potentially breaking contracts and foregoing any future revenue and profits from the sizable Russian market, also when the war would end. Many corporations took substantial financial losses as a result of the decision to stop operating in Russia. Shell, for example, in April 2022 expected to lose $5 billion. For corporations risking more distant involvement in Russia's atrocities, the stance of their home country was important (Wellhausen and Zhu, 2025). BP and Shell's exits, for example, are rumoured to have been the result of British state pressure (Granitz, 2022). However, anticipation of new sanctions may also have been of importance. Moreover, financial isolation, raw materials necessary for production becoming scarce, and employees risking to be drafted for the army may have played a role for various corporations. Research into profit-related repercussions of staying or leaving Russia indicates that the decision to leave may indeed be rewarded by the market. For example, an event study of leave- and stay decisions of 1281 firms found positive stock returns for corporations that announced they would leave Russia (although these were low, with an average of +0.67%). The study found no abnormal returns for the decision to stay (Kiesel and Kolaric, 2023). Nevertheless, how costly a withdrawal is and how much reputational gains such a decision would yield differs greatly between corporations.

Many corporations were inclined to announce their withdrawal, suspension, or curtailment of their business operations in or with Russia by foregrounding moral or even political considerations. Coca-Cola, for example, mentioned the ‘unconscionable effects of these tragic events in Ukraine’ (Coca-Cola, 2022). Shell's CEO Ben van Beurden said in a statement that the company was ‘shocked by the loss of life in Ukraine, which we deplore, resulting from a senseless act of military aggression … We cannot – and we will not – stand by' (Shell, 2022). BP stated that its retreat from Russia was not because of sanctions, but because it was ‘the right thing to do’, although immediately adding that that would also serve the company's long-term interests of the company and its shareholders.

Automotive and retail brands, such as Renault, Nissan, Zara and Reebok, have officially left Russia but their products remain available in renamed Russian storefronts (Davidoff, 2022). Others tried to get a good deal out of leaving. Heineken, as described above, expanded its Russian operations, perhaps in an effort to be able to sell for a good price, attaining 72 million litres of additional sales in beer and soft drinks in 2022 (Van Beemen, 2023). This was done in the traditional spirit of maximising profits, as is evidenced by statements from Heineken Russia's own documents: ‘It was made possible by the belief that anything is possible and the amazing teamwork – Marketing, Sales, Production and Procurement, and Finance made it a reality!’ That the branch was sold for a ‘symbolic’ 1 dollar, however, suggests that the traditional motivations of the market economy, in this case, benefitted the Russian State, and not the Dutch company. For many corporations, the continued involvement (as opposed to swift exit) has not led to profit for the corporation, but rather coerced corporate funds into the Russian state budget. The strong Russian state succeeded in establishing a level of control that – since December 2022 – may amount to coercion; preventing profitable sales and demanding high contributions to the state coffers has locked in corporations.

For the other ways of involvement, the profit motive is more straightforward. Violating sanctions is lucrative due to increased scarcity. The import of critical raw materials and fossil fuels may similarly be associated with profits but also stems from a dependence on Russia as a supplier. Ideology only seems to be a motivation for the Wagner Group, especially its leaders, which share Putin's nationalism and ideology by which Ukraine should be part of Russia. Wagner's fighters received ideological preparation, according to Prigozhin, to increase the organisation's effectiveness (Kirby, 2023).

Opportunity aspects

Most corporations active in Russia, now risking distant or more proximate involvement in atrocity crimes in Ukraine, had acted upon business opportunities that arose in Russia's post-Soviet move towards capitalism. The oligarchic nature of Russia's political economy, and close ties between business and state, had since ensured that strategic and military business and trade would be conducive to Russia's goals and corporate estimations of business opportunities in Russia seemed unscathed by Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea.

The full-scale invasion of Ukraine has, on the one hand, created new business opportunities, particularly in the armaments sector and other essential industries. New business opportunities arose because of gaps left by exiting corporations. On the other hand, business opportunities for corporations deteriorated after February 2022; cutting off Russia's biggest banks from the SWIFT system (Cipriani et al., 2023), scarcity of raw materials or parts, impending additional sanctions, and a hostile stance from the Russian government towards corporations from ‘enemy countries’ threatens ‘business as usual’ in Russia. Moreover, when a global opportunity structure might reward exiting Russia (as described under the motivational aspects section) depending on a corporation's characteristics, the overall opportunity structure is an important part of the explanation of why so many corporations left.

In February 2022, the ability to find alternative courses of action – and leave – depended to a great extent on the characteristics of the business activities of corporations, most prominently business model, ownership structure and dependence on Russian operations. Corporations such as Netflix and Match – which owns Tinder, Hinge, Plenty of Fish and other dating apps – could quite easily leave Russia, as suspending their services was operationally not too difficult. Both corporations had no offices or employees in the country and while revenues from Russia were lucrative, both companies left. It seems that the franchise ownership structure of McDonald's and Starbucks in Russia was the most important reason that these brands could leave Russia so swiftly. McDonald's operations were sold to a Russian licensee and Starbucks sold to a Russian rapper, both at a cost that was bearable by these companies; Starbucks’ write-off was less than one percent of its global revenues (Barry, 2022). However, by comparison, pizza chain Papa John's, also operated by a franchise model, has remained active in Russia because seemingly the parent company cannot prevent local franchise holders from continuing and/or is unwilling to stop its licencing (Cresswell, 2022). For many manufacturing businesses (e.g. the automotive industry), retailers, oil companies, oil service providers and financial institutions, leaving is much more difficult. Moreover, the extensive sanctions regime and isolation of Russia have reduced the number of possible buyers to sell to.

Since December 2022, the room for manoeuvre for foreign corporations in Russia became smaller, as their opportunity to leave became increasingly restricted by exit taxes and fines corporations must pay to be able to exit the country. Nationalisation became more than a theoretical possibility (The Moscow Times, 2023b). Moreover, profits remain trapped within Russia. Corporations became locked in with no viable ways to achieve their corporate goals. However, most corporations that are still doing business in Russia seem very much capable of dealing with the negative consequences of the accusations they receive, and legitimacy loss seems limited. Corporations such as Unilever (leaving only in October 2024) have faced criticism, but no clear economic disadvantages from their remaining in Russia and Haas Automation remains a proud sponsor of the Haas F1-Team. Overall, corporations have been able to maintain their legitimacy despite accusations, perhaps challenging some assumptions about the relation between human rights violations and business legitimacy (Enderle, 2020).

Control aspects

The most relevant source of formal control to prevent links between corporate conduct and the commission of atrocity crimes may be sanctions law. Sanctions complemented sanctions imposed since the 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea, which had already put restrictions on the financial sector and banned the export of critical technology and certain dual-use goods. By late 2025, the EU had adopted 18 sanctions packages, imposing trade restrictions on many dual use products, some oil imports and military equipment. The United States and the United Kingdom installed similar sanctions. However, critical raw materials, pipeline-delivered crude oil and liquefied natural gas and various other petroleum products were not included in the sanctions.

Assessing the success of sanctions in preventing corporate links to atrocity crimes in Ukraine is difficult given limited knowledge on corporate compliance. Moreover, enforcement is notoriously difficult (Early, 2016). We know that sanctions are being evaded, as was described above. Sanctioned goods are still being exported and imported to and from Russia's so-called ‘third countries’ such as China, Kazakhstan, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates. Since the summer of 2023, such redirections have received more attention and additional sanctions covering export and import to and from Russia via third countries.

Only a small number of sanction violations have reached court, but court cases are emerging. In the United States, the Justice Department is prosecuting violations of sanctions on energy imports. Most cases involve violations before 2022, indicating the lengthiness of enforcement timelines. The United States, for example, arrested a Russian–German national for exporting critical microelectronics with military applications to Russia (Hirtenstein et al., 2023). A Dutch court convicted a Russian–Dutch businessman to 18 months in prison for exporting microchips and electronic equipment to Russia with false end-user statements (Rechtspraak.nl, 2023). In France, TotalEnergies faced complaints for allegedly providing jet fuel used to commit war crimes. However, this case was dismissed in January 2023 (France24, 2023).

Corporate links to Russian atrocity crimes in Ukraine that fall outside the scope of sanctions are currently hardly restricted by any type of formal regulation. As mentioned above, formal control over more distant involvement (or risk thereof) is difficult to imagine because legal control mechanisms would require a level of evidence of causation and knowledge that is not available in most cases. However, there are semi-formal norms that could apply to this category of involvement.

The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs; United Nations, 2011) – and the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises – have over the past decade become authoritative norms for businesses. In situations of armed conflict, corporations that adhere to the UNGPs should conduct ‘enhanced human rights due diligence’ and adopt a conflict-sensitive approach (Aguirre and Pietropaoli, 2023). Most Western corporations operating in Russia pledge a commitment to the UNGPs on their corporate websites and in their annual reports yet the UNGPs do not seem to have influenced their exit decisions or other corporate conduct that could risk involvement, despite the UNGPs requiring heightened awareness already since 2014.

Informal types of control can come from investors, self-regulation of businesses/business sectors and from the general public. There is some evidence that especially well-known large firms reacted to pressures from their investors to stop or limit their operations in Russia (Balyuk and Fedyk, 2023). The research discussed above indicates that leaving might be rewarded by ‘the market’, suggesting a regulatory market effect. Others have suggested that shareholders do not care so much, and do not sanction corporations that ‘dig in’ to Russia (O’Dwyer, 2022). Anecdotal evidence suggests that sanction violations are sanctioned by the market but breaking earlier promises to leave Russia does not. When Technip Energies was reported to violate EU sanctions by continuing to service a Russian gas project, this resulted in a 22% share drop ($800 million; Reuters, 2023). By contrast, Heineken's failure to follow up on their announcement to leave, and subsequent intensification of business, became a small-scale scandal – leading to critical questions at Heineken's annual shareholder meeting and a change of its Global Communications Director – was not reflected in its stock price, which remained on the rise until disappointing sales numbers from Asian businesses were made public (Van Beemen, 2023).

Corporations that go beyond what is expected of them based on economic sanctions are sometimes described as self-sanctioning (Parella, 2024). However, given the lack of clear reference by ‘self-sanctioning corporations’ to a set of norms that guides their actions, we cannot conclude that corporations are actually engaging in self-regulation. Rather, they are anticipating future sanctions and condemnation by civil society organisations, the media, and the general public. NGO activity and media publications are thus likely to have impacted corporate decision-making to prevent, end or diminish corporate links to Russian atrocity crimes in Ukraine, by publishing information that would otherwise have remained hidden and pressuring corporations to stop more distant involvement. However, the exceptional attention for corporate roles and resulting above-average awareness among the general public have not led to consumer boycotts of corporations such as Auchan, Nestle or Unilever, which are all still present in Russia. Despite the attention for corporate links to Russia being nearly unprecedented, large numbers of corporations still contribute to the Russian war fund, supply goods or fund the war through the import of Russia's natural resources. Moreover, attention for corporate contributions to the war in Ukraine may be waning, and political support for a focus on businesses seems to disappear, as evidenced by Ukraine's removal of its ‘sponsors of war’ list, in March 2024 in response to pressure by China and several European countries.

Conclusion

This article first places four ways corporations have become involved in Russian atrocities in Ukraine – paying taxes, importing goods, selling goods and providing military services on a continuum ranging from more distant to more proximate involvement, with less or more direct links between corporate activity and atrocities. For more proximate forms of involvement (paying taxes and importing goods) establishing a causal link between specific corporate conduct and specific instances of atrocities will not be possible in most cases. Selling goods may involve more proximate involvement and providing military services is on the proximate end of the continuum. Placing the continuum next to the classification by Clapham and Jerbi (2001) shows that the categorisation of ways corporations have become involved in Russian Atrocity Crimes in Ukraine could be extend by the category ‘dependent involvement’ and that within ways of involvement, different classifications may fit.

The second part of this article applied theoretical framework developed to explain and understand corporate involvement in atrocity crimes. The analysis showed that profit-related motives operate paradoxically in this context. On the one hand, leaving Russia – even when this leads to substantial financial losses – may be met by reputational rewards for leaving Russia and showing moral considerations for doing so. On the other hand, profit-related goals lead other corporations to stay or even expand their business. For some, the opportunity structure remained beneficial, or was even improved, because of increased military demand and the gaps left by exiting firms. For others, the Russian opportunity structure deteriorated, while exiting offered rewards in the global opportunity structure. Whether corporations left depended on their capability to choose such an alternative course of action: business model, ownership structure, and dependence on Russian operations were important determinants. The less a corporation was tied to – or depended on – Russia, the more room for manoeuvre. However, such latitude has diminished rapidly as Russia has increased its control over business. As a strong state, it can seise corporate assets, potentially coercing corporations into continued involvement in atrocities in Ukraine. Formal control pressures are limited to corporate conduct covered by economic sanctions, though enforcement remains difficult and accountability for sanctions-busting will likely be partial and protracted. There are some indications of market regulation, that is, investors demanding and rewarding reduced with Russia. Market punishment may exist for sanction violations (involvement through supply) but not for more distant involvement.

Attention for corporate links to Russia's atrocity crimes is exceptional and, likely reflects increased standards for business legitimacy and indicates evolution of normative guidance for business on human rights (Buhmann, 2020). Yet despite high levels of attention compared to other contexts, no large-scale consumer boycotts have occurred, as opposed to, for example, the boycotts against Starbucks and MacDonalds for their support of the Israeli army (Valdez, 2024). Civil society and public pressure may have influenced corporate decision-making but, alone, is insufficient to compel companies to sever ties with Russia and also has not substantially tarnished corporate reputations.