Vichunai Group, one of the leaders of the Ukrainian seafood market, continues its business in Russia in the fourth month of the war. The company once again postpones the shutdown of its plant in the Kaliningrad region of the Russian Federation, promising to do this as soon as the stocks of raw materials, which seem to have been created before the war, run out. However, according to insider information, it seems that the company is manipulating Ukrainian public opinion, because in reality, in April, Vichunai Group made new large-scale purchases of raw materials and secretly delivered them from the port of Klaipeda overland to its Russian plant..

The topic of Western business continuing to operate in Russia remains painful for Ukrainians. After all, the presence of foreign capital legitimizes the actions of the aggressor, supports its economy and literally feeds the Russians. According to the Kyiv School of Economics, 1037 companies (or 50.2% of the total) have already left Russia or completely curtailed their activities.. Before the war, TOP-70 foreign companies paid $20.2 billion to the Russian budget. taxes per year. That is, now Russia receives at least half of this amount..

It is especially annoying when the aggressor is supported by businesses from Ukraine's allies.. In particular, from Lithuania, which would be more correct to call a sister country, because we are united by a common history and heroic resistance to Moscow as part of the USSR. Obvious parallels: "

Vichunai Group leaves Russia. But it is not exactly.

So the interest of the Ukrainian media in the Lithuanian Vichunai Group, which is the only large Lithuanian company doing business in Russia today, is natural.. Moreover, the group is one of the largest players not only in the Russian, but also in the Ukrainian market, and its main product is VICI crab sticks, a well-known brand in Ukraine.

So, the group owns the Vichunai-Rus plant in Sovetsk, Kaliningrad region, the largest enterprise in Eastern Europe for the production of surimi, or, as Russian television people say, “the famous Vichi crab sticks all over Russia”.

The public position of the company, at first glance, is unambiguous: it supports Ukraine and leaves the Russian Federation. That's just when he leaves - it is not known.

First of all, as the Lithuanian National Television and Radio notes, the company announced its withdrawal from Russia only when mass protests began in front of the Kaunas City Hall in Lithuania. The location of the actions was due to the fact that one of the owners of the group is the mayor of Kaunas, Visvaldas Matiyoshaitis.. A politician whom Ukrainian journalists have already dubbed the “Lithuanian Medvedchuk” and whom their Lithuanian colleagues refer to with ill-concealed annoyance due to obvious signs of a conflict of interest and deep ties to Russia.

“How many Lithuanian companies, the main beneficiary of which is one of the most influential Lithuanian politicians and the mayor of the second city, are operating in Russia? How many Lithuanian companies supplied products to the Kremlin buffet? How many more Lithuanian companies supply their products to the occupied Crimea and Donbass? ”- the well-known Lithuanian journalist Andrius Tapinas asks rhetorical questions, on whose initiative they recently raised 6 million euros for the purchase of Bayraktar for Ukraine. And he answers: "

Lithuanian analyst Marius Laurinavicius, outraged by the presence of the mayor of Kaunas among the shareholders of this business, adds expressive touches to the company’s portrait: “In order to conduct business in criminal regimes, you need to have at least a couple of things: acquaintance, behind the scenes or giving bribes”.

In turn, political scientist Nerijus Malyukevicius notes that, in addition to exporting oil and gas, Russia has another export - corruption.. And the founder of the Center for Investigative Journalism Siena Sarunas Cerniauskas, who took part in high-profile investigations such as the Panama Papers and the Russian Laundry, says that corruption is one of the most important components of Russian business and politics..

The success story of the company in Russia really raises questions. The business is financed by the state-owned VTB Bank, Vichunai Group supplied its products directly to the FGBU Food Plant No. 4 and the Federal State Budgetary Institution “Kremlevsky Food Plant”, which are part of the Administration of the President of the Russian Federation, as well as to St. Petersburg Mining University, which is managed by a scientific.

With this in mind, it is not surprising that leaving Russia is given to the company so hard.. The first reaction to the war from " The company announced that it would take “three to four months” for the exit process.. Then this statement was actually repeated on April 8. Finally, on May 5, it was announced that only now the company has hired consultants, and the process of finding buyers will take another three months.. On May 18, Vichunai Group announced that a list of 30 buyers had already been drawn up, and the sale could take place in two months, that is, by mid-July. And on June 1, a new version was published that the company would leave Russia “in the summer”. That is, the deadline has been extended until September..

With a “window” at the border, raw materials do not run out for years.

The company explains the delay with two reasons - organizational and raw materials.. The head of the group, Sarunas Matiyoshaitis, said that exiting the market is “not flipping a switch”, and the company must fulfill its obligations to the Russian authorities and counterparties. In addition, it was noted that the company, as part of a sustainable practice, purchased raw materials six months in advance, and their disposal would be too costly, so the plant will continue to operate until all stocks are used up..

The voiced motives caused frank distrust both in Lithuania and in Ukraine.

“A month or two should be enough to deal with both aspects - the termination of purchases of raw materials and obligations for the supply of the final product. For a company like Vicunai Group, three to four months is a lot,” said Arunas Laurinaitis, Vice President of the Lithuanian Confederation.. Recall that we are already talking about six months or more..

Our sources in the market rate the claims about being forced to delay due to the need to use raw materials as "

“It all looks like an excuse for journalists and the public who do not know and should not know the technological subtleties. Raw materials are actually purchased in advance. But we are talking about a reserve for two, maximum three months.. Procurement for six months is nonsense, absurdity. There is no such practice,” says our source.. “But even if you go crazy and believe it, the question arises: why don’t they just transport raw materials to their nearby plant in Kaunas and use them there if they are really determined to stop production in Russia?

And the answer is that the main raw material for the production of the main product of the plant in Sovetsk, namely, surimi, Vichunai Group does not need to be imported to the Russian Federation, it receives it on the domestic market, buying surimi from RFC - a ship that produces surimi directly in. It is known that RFC has a signed long-term agreement with Vichunai. It helps to understand the whole business model of the company as a whole..

“They themselves admit that when they were going to build a plant in the Russian Federation, they chose between Kaliningrad and Sovetsk, and for some reason they chose the latter. At first glance, a strange choice, because Kaliningrad is a port where they could directly receive raw materials and process them there, our source continues.. — But for some reason they chose a depressive, downtrodden town on land. And the trick is that it is located on the border between Mordor and the EU. And the plant itself is just two kilometers away, right on the railway line that goes to the border bridge. As in a joke: " And the mayor’s police background allows organizing transportation with “facilitated taxation”.

Here it should be explained that at the time of Lithuania's independence, Visvaldas Matiyoshaitis served as deputy head of the Kaunas Internal Affairs Directorate for political work of the Lithuanian USSR. In Soviet times, the Lithuanian Ministry of Internal Affairs closely cooperated with the KGB, engaging in the identification of protest moods and the fight against the Sajudis liberation movement.. The coordinators of this activity on the ground were precisely the deputy heads of the internal affairs departments for political work, and this is another rhyme with Medvedchuk, who was also suspected of collaborating with the KGB. And already in 1991, the former policeman founded the Vichunai Group.

Now Vichunai Group has launched an active information campaign, within the framework of which it constantly emphasizes that it supports Ukraine and has already spent 700 thousand dollars for humanitarian purposes.. Euro. It is noted that the enterprises of the group provide for the use of their own heavy equipment, as well as food. However, daily, according to media reports, the company pays 400 thousand. rubles to the Russian budget. What for a hundred days of the war, according to the official Russian euro exchange rate, approximately corresponds to these 700 thousand. Euro.

And the equality of these amounts raises the question: do the owners of the company just want to pay off Ukrainian public opinion And if they are worried about Ukraine, then why, according to the information of the Lithuanian National Television and Radio, the products of the Vichunai Group have been sold in the Crimea and Donbass since 2014 and today? And if the company wants to leave Russia, then why does it continue to invest in marketing actions in Russian supermarkets, while production and sales volumes continue to grow, as the second shareholder of the company, Lyudas Skieras, admitted in an interview?

Thousands of bullets, shells, rockets and bombs financed by Russian taxpayers, including the Vichunai Group, are flying at Ukrainians. And although it would be cynical on the part of the company, but at least it would be possible to honestly admit: we remain in Russia because we are not ready to lose our main market, forgive me if you can. Because the approach “both ours and yours” has not been working in Ukraine since February 24.

Read more articles by Roman Ivchenko at the link.