More than four years after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, AB InBev remains entangled in Russian operations it once pledged to exit, drawing renewed scrutiny as the war grinds on and political tolerance for corporate ambiguity continues to wear thin.
The Leuven-based brewer, the largest in the world by volume and Belgium’s best-known multinational, announced in the early weeks of the invasion that it would sever ties with its Russian joint venture. It booked a €1.1 billion impairment, one of the largest write-downs taken by any Western consumer goods group following the invasion, and repeatedly signalled to investors that Russia was no longer part of its long-term commercial strategy.
More than four years later, a clean exit has still not materialised. In 2022, the company entered talks with Anadolu Efes, its Turkish partner, to transfer its stake in their 50/50 Russian-Ukrainian joint venture. Two successive proposals — first, Efes acquiring AB InBev’s stake, and later a cross-swap of their Russian and Ukrainian holdings — were both rejected by Moscow.
Some critics argued that neither proposal constituted a genuine exit, but rather a reshuffling of assets, given that AB InBev itself holds a major stake in Anadolu Efes. More than a year after Moscow rejected the latest proposed “exit scheme”, AB InBev has yet to take any new visible steps toward leaving Russia.
“The delay raises an uncomfortable question — does it really take more than a year to agree on a new way out, or has AB InBev simply chosen to wait, stay quiet, and hope to outlast the political pressure while preserving exposure to a valuable Russian business?” said Anthony Hagman from Hagman Global Strategies, a London-based think tank focusing on geopolitical affairs.
A Kremlin decree issued in December 2024 transferred management of the company’s Russian brewing operations to a domestic entity, stripping foreign partners of operational control. Yet AB InBev has still not concluded a formal exit. The company remains connected to the asset, its brands continue to trade in the Russian market, and it retains a potential claim to future economic value should the political environment eventually change. All of this leaves its position deeply ambiguous.
AB InBev continues to point to regulatory obstacles and failed negotiations as the primary reasons its exit has dragged on. Those explanations, once broadly accepted, are now increasingly being questioned by analysts and critics alike.
Financing the war machine
Whatever the legal complexities surrounding AB InBev’s exit, the financial reality remains stark. Its Russian business, regardless of who nominally manages it today, remains one of the largest sources of tax revenue among Western-linked companies still active in the country. According to public disclosures, in 2025 its tax and other payments to Russia’s budget — much of it directed toward wartime spending — exceeded €1.1 billion.
“The business has not been fading at the margins. Russian financial reporting shows that it increased revenue by around 30% in 2024 alone. In other words, the Russian asset remains commercially significant,” Hagman noted.
Rivals managed to leave
The company’s predicament stands out sharply against the experience of its closest competitors.
Carlsberg, the Danish brewer whose Russian subsidiary was also seized by state authorities, nonetheless negotiated a settlement through which it recovered more than €300 million for its assets. Heineken sold its Russian operations to a local buyer for a symbolic €1, with the buyer agreeing to repay around €100 million in intercompany debt.
“Both exits were costly. Both were completed. Neither company is writing twelve-figure tax cheques to the Kremlin today,” Hagman added.
A broader Belgian problem
According to a recent Brussels Signal report, AB InBev is not the only major Belgian company still operating in Russia. Beaulieu International Group runs a production facility manufacturing cushion vinyl flooring under the Juteks RU brand. Food ingredients company Puratos still operates three Russian factories serving the bakery and confectionery industries. Steel wire manufacturer Bekaert continues to operate a plant that generated more than €50 million in 2024.
Each company has offered its own rationale, citing local employment, essential goods supply, or the difficulty of exiting the market, and each remains within the bounds of current EU sanctions law. Some critics argue that legal compliance alone is no longer a sufficient answer: revenues generated still flow into an economy and tax base now explicitly geared toward prosecuting a war.
The Brussels contradiction
The continued Russian presence of Belgium’s best-known multinational carries particular weight given Belgium’s political geography.
“Brussels is home to the headquarters of both the European Union and NATO. The Belgian government has been among the more consistent supporters of Ukraine within the EU, backing successive rounds of sanctions and contributing to financial aid packages for Kyiv,” Hagman said. “That public posture sits uneasily alongside the commercial reality: Belgian factories operating in Russia, revenues being earned, and taxes remitted to a state at war with a country Belgium has pledged to support.”
For critics, that leaves a sharper conclusion: the company’s actions increasingly resemble an attempt to avoid a definitive exit while retaining the possibility of benefiting from Russia if the political environment eventually changes.
For AB InBev, the discomfort remains acute. The company no longer controls its Russian operations. But it has not fully left. The write-down is on the books. The departure is not. Nor has the company fully severed its ownership exposure or potential future economic claims. And in that gap, more than €1 billion in tax and other payments flowed to the Russian budget in 2025 alone.
As the war continues and pressure from investors and European institutions mounts, the space for ambiguity is rapidly narrowing. Companies that have relied on the complexity of the Russian regulatory environment to explain their continued presence are finding that argument increasingly difficult to sustain — in boardrooms, in Brussels, and in Kyiv.
