Exclusive analysis: we looked at the 400 western firms still in Russia. Their paltry size strips Putin’s bluff bare naked

Last week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that state intelligence had uncovered discussions between the U.S. and Russia on economic agreements totaling approximately $12 trillion as part of the controversial 28-point peace plan released in November. 

Whether this is true or not, President Donald Trump would do well to recall a certain top-level meeting in 1973, between China and the U.S., when China’s Mao Zedong claimed that he invented the English term “paper tiger.” (In fact, the term was introduced to the west hundreds of years earlier, by a British missionary.)

“‘Paper tiger,'” Secretary of State Henry Kissinger responded. “Yes, that was all about us,” prompting laughter as he noted Mao’s love of describing the supposed hollowness of the U.S. economy in these terms—and he likely had a point in the 1970s.

“But you are a German from Germany,” Mao responded. “But your Germany now has met with an ill fate, because in two wars it has been defeated,” a statement with which Kissinger agreed.

Germany had attempted “too much, beyond its abilities and resources,” Kissinger said, adding that the Germans “were not prepared for a long war.” Mao lit his cigar as Kissinger talked.

What we have here is similar to what Kissinger described, a Russia that has attempted too much and spread itself too thin, unprepared for what has become a long war. And, to paraphrase Mao’s description, it has a “paper bear” economy.

While another round of Russia-Ukraine peace talks concluded last week with little progress, the conference did produce more rumors about potential economic dealmaking between the U.S. and Russia—some at the expense of Ukraine—to reach a ceasefire in the war now entering its fifth year. Last week,

It would not be the first time President Trump dangled misleading economic incentives in an attempt to persuade Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the conflict. During their brief August meeting in Alaska, reports swirled about plans by the Trump administration to propose the return of Western companies to Russia and to pursue industrial partnerships as motivation for Putin. Widespread backlash from the general public to corporate boardrooms quickly emerged at the prospect of economic cooperation with the Putin regime and the potential of subjecting businesses to the significant risks from operating in an autocratic Russia.

That action, along with the ensuing discussions between the Russian and U.S. negotiators, prompted us to examine the extent to which the Russian economy continues to offer value to Western companies. The answer: very little. 

Russia is not remotely a major superpower. With 80% of Russia’s territory sparsely populated, indeed essentially uninhabitable, due to its extreme cold, permafrost, and poor soil, especially in Siberia and the Far East, over 80% of the population lives in the European-facing 20% of its massive land mass. Its commodity-based economy of raw materials brings zero value added to the world economy and now most of those resources are found elsewhere more safely and even more cheaply. The economy does chug along for now by economic cannibalism, eating its future investment in productive industries and infrastructure. It is essentially the equivalent of throwing the living room furniture into the furnace to keep the heat ablaze, temporarily. 

Our team conducted an extensive analysis to estimate the asset values of more than 400 companies in North America and Europe that have remained in Russia since its 2022 invasion of Ukraine. The total assets reported to the Russian Federation amounted to less than $75 billion. For context, that amounts to less than one-quarter of the assets held by Walmart and one-sixth of those reported by ExxonMobil; and less than 1% of the individual market value of NVIDIA, Alphabet, and Apple. 

That is in addition to the hundreds of billions of dollars that abandoned the Russian economy in 2022 after our team helped catalyze the exit of over 1,000 major corporations following the invasion. Their departure was not just a statement of support for Ukrainian independence and condemnation of Putin’s........

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