Klimkin accuses Volkswagen, Adidas of recognizing illegal Crimean annexation

German companies Volkswagen and Adidas allow their
retailers to do business in Russian-occupied Crimea and thereby give
recognition to the illegal annexation, said on Jan. 3 Pavlo Klimkin, Ukraine’s
foreign minister, as reported by the pravda.com.ua news site. “Of course, there
are companies that allow their retailers – Volkswagen or Adidas, for example –
to recognize Crimea as Russian territory,” he said. “We will certainly get
them. Get them using not only political, but also legal methods.” In response,
both companies issued press releases denying violating any laws. “Truly, the
Volkswagen brands uphold the sanctions and fulfill the decisions,” the company
said in its press release, as reported by the Deutsche Welle news agency. Views
to the contrary surprise us, the company said.

Zenon Zawada: Crimea is a
relatively small market for these corporate giants (population 2.3 mln in
2014). So we expect no problems in getting them to comply with the sanctions,
if they are truly violating them. The bigger concern for the Ukrainian
government should be the ongoing willingness of European corporations to adhere
to the sanctions imposed on Russia (extending beyond automobiles and clothing).
While most of them won’t be lobbying for relaxing these sanctions, at least not
openly, these corporations will be eager to take advantage of any opportunity
should European legislatures begin to ease them.

To relax sanctions, the Europeans are getting more
arguments every day thanks to the Ukrainians. In today’s Ukraine Daily, we
report on Russia having supplied more than 56% of Ukraine’s coal supply last
year. So it will be hard for Ukraine to convince the Europeans to stop trading
with Russia when it is doing so itself. Moreover, it’s possible that a
significant part of this coal was mined in occupied Donbas, which had a trade
blockade imposed against it by the Ukrainian government in spring 2017. So
these are potential scandals, in addition to the resistance to Western reforms
being put up by the Poroshenko administration.