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empty shelves at supermarkets
the rationing of staples
and shuttered stores
after more than a month of fighting in
ukraine ordinary russians have fewer
options when they go shopping more than
600 foreign brands have announced their
withdrawal from russia according to yale
university some cited concerns about the
conflict and the safety of staff while
others left as the u.s and its allies
unleashed a raft of sanctions that could
complicate business operations in the
country russia has been decoupled from
the global economy and all these goods
and services that came into russia over
the past years and made russia part of
the modern world so the the ripple
effects of this are going to be massive
so here's how people in russia are
dealing with the economic fallout and
the glimpse it offers into public
sentiment about the war across the
border
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in the 1990s as the former soviet union
began disintegrating foreign brands
started setting up shop and many were
immediately popular
fast forward about 30 years and with the
war across the border hundreds of these
companies are temporarily curtailing
operations or pulling out entirely from
russia that's partly because running a
business under western sanctions is
getting difficult for instance several
russian banks have been delisted from
the global financial messaging system
and that can make it trickier to carry
out basic tasks like importing supplies
or paying employees
many of these brands are beloved by
russians on the day ikea announced that
it was shutting its 17 stores there were
long lines of people waiting to do their
last minute shopping the swedish
company's pullback has also meant that
jobs are in limbo even though it said it
would support 15 000 employees
so far most of the companies that are
pulling out have said that they will
continue paying their employees it's not
quite clear how long they'll be able to
last so it's still sort of a wait and
see approach
not all foreign companies have chosen to
leave some are playing a balancing act
by staying put and scaling back for
instance mcdonald's said it suspended
direct operations in russia but the
outlets owned by local franchises have
remained open
and pepsi said it's halting sales of its
big soda brands but will continue to
sell other products like milk and baby
food
the corporate pullback is one of many
pressure points on russia's economy a
few days before putin launched the war
western nations dropped hard-hitting
sanctions on the country and as the
ruble plunged russians lined up at atms
to take out cash
this was also compounded by inflation
which has been persistently on the rise
during the corona virus pandemic and now
the war has made the purchasing power of
ordinary russians even weaker so some
started stocking up which has prompted
supermarkets to restrict the sale of
some products
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putin has vowed to carry out a raft of
measures to offset the pain of sanctions
on russians and the government reassured
the public that there will be no
shortage of food or daily necessities
but as western sanctions shake the
russian economy and foreign companies
continue to scale back domestic support
for moscow and the war isn't waning that
even among people that are against the
war there's been sort of a blowback of
thinking how are these actual penalties
how are western companies leaving really
helping fix the situation
and this anti-west sentiment is already
strong in large swaths of the country
for example in one town more than 150
miles away from moscow protesters drove
cars marked with the letter z which has
become a russian pro-war symbol
most of rural russia and provincial
russia they rely on russian produced
goods anyways and this is the majority
of vladimir putin's support and putin's
popularity has increased after russia
launched its war in ukraine he had an 83
percent approval rating according to the
independent russian pollster lavada
center so with no immediate end to the
war in sight ordinary russians may deal
with deeper economic pain as sanctions
mount and more companies choose to leave