[Lightspeed]

Wintershall’s empty bank accounts expose plight of western companies still in Russia

Wintershall Dea chief executive Mario Mehren spent much of last year defending its continued presence in Russia, where the BASF subsidiary was one of the last western companies still pumping oil and gas in the wake of Vladimir Putin’s assault on Ukraine.

But he revealed last week that the company was finally leaving, saying Moscow-owned Gazprom had taken control of the German company’s joint ventures in Siberia and emptied their shared bank accounts.

Almost €2bn of Wintershall’s cash had vanished, Mehren told German newspaper Börsen-Zeitung, accusing Gazprom of having “cleared” the accounts of its three shared gas and oil extraction businesses. Gazprom did not respond to a request for comment.