The sale by LUKOIL of LUKOIL International GmbH, which owns all of its foreign assets, has become the most striking signal of the degradation of Russian international business since the start of the full-scale war against Ukraine. The company’s foreign portfolio, valued at $22 billion, is being transferred to the American investment fund Carlyle Group, effectively marking the end of the era of Russian private business expansion abroad.
This collapse is not an isolated case. In 2022, Gazprom lost Gazprom Germania (valued at $8.4 billion), which Germany initially placed under external management and later nationalized. Poland stripped the company of control over Europol Gaz, the operator of the Polish section of the Yamal–Europe pipeline, which in 2023 came fully under the control of the state-owned Orlen.
Rosneft in 2022 lost control over Rosneft Deutschland and RN Refining & Marketing, with a combined value of around $7 billion, along with stakes in three German refineries. Novatek was forced to part with its Polish assets under Novatek Green Energy, which were acquired in 2025 by Barter.
The banking sector suffered similarly severe losses. Sberbank sold or liquidated all its European assets—from Switzerland to Austria—lost its bank in Ukraine, and exited Kazakhstan. VTB, after U.S. blocking sanctions, lost control over its units in the U.K., Germany, and Cyprus. Alfa-Bank was left without Amsterdam Trade Bank in the Netherlands and without the Ukrainian Sense Bank, which was nationalized in 2023.
State corporations and industrial groups were also forced to scale back their presence: Russian Railways sold 75% of GEFCO, Rosatom lost its Finnish Hanhikivi-1 project, and so on.
Taken together, these losses reflect a systemic failure of Russian business’s international ambitions.
