The Russian arm of German wholesaler Metro AG, now under Kremlin control, has donated 1 billion roubles (about €11.1 million) to a fund that buys equipment for Russian troops, the Kyiv Independent reports.
Metro AG said on 23 October that it had neither agreed to nor authorised the payment to the All-Russia People's Front fund, adding that it lost operational control of Metro Russia when President Vladimir Putin placed the subsidiary under temporary state administration on 28 September.
Metro first entered Russia in 2001 and ran 91 wholesale stores there with about 9,000 staff. Moscow has taken over the local businesses of a number of Western firms during the war. According to Deutsche Welle, several of them have since paid into the same fund, including Poland's Can-Pack, the Dutch company Akzo Nobel and Denmark's Rockwool.
Source: Kyiv Independent
