Several Russian companies, including some linked to the entourage of Nikolai Patrushev, Secretary of the Security Council and confidant of Vladimir Putin and Sergei Lavrov, Minister of Foreign Affairs, have volunteered to take over Danone’s activities in the country.

Danone‘s Russian activities whet appetites. According to our information, which partly confirms that of the Russian press agency Prime, half a dozen Russian companies, some of which are run by businessmen close to the Kremlin, have contacted the French agri-food group. The latter, which was one of the first multinationals to set up in the country in August 1992, a few months after the collapse of the Soviet Union, announced last October that it was putting its milk and dairy products branch up for sale. of Russian origin, representing 90% of Danone’s business in this country and 5% of group sales. The epilogue of a saga which reached its peak in 2010 when the French company, with the support of ex-skier Jean-Claude Killy, close to Vladimir Putin, seized the Russian dairy group Unimilk and made Russia its second market.

Damate linked to a bank under sanctions

Among the Russian companies that are candidates for takeover are, unsurprisingly, the behemoths of the food industry Rusagro, specializing in the cultivation of plants and sugar, EkoNiva-APK, present in milk, or even Cherkizovo, whose activity is mainly dedicated to farming. livestock or poultry. But behind these large companies, other candidates are on the lookout and should push the advice of Danone in this transfer, the investment bank Rothschild and Co and the law firm Bredin Prat, to in-depth investigations. This is particularly the case of Damate, the leading producer of t,urkey meat in Russia. According to Western intelligence, the founder of Damate, Naum Babaev, is close to Dmitri Patrushev, trained at the FSB Academy (in charge of internal intelligence, main heir to the KGB) and current Minister of Agriculture. He is above all the son of Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of the Security Council, head of the FSB from 1999 to 2008 and confidant of Vladi