WASHINGTON — Leonid Smirnov, an American business leader whose company Glavproduct was seized by the Kremlin, is asking President Donald Trump to intervene and pressure Russian President Vladimir Putin to rectify the situation.
“My message to President Trump is my company for sure is going to be destroyed—there will be nothing to save because the people who came in are like a parasite on a big container ship, or like a monkey in a Boeing 747, that’s how they’re acting and it’s being destroyed,” Smirnov said in an interview this week with Breitbart News. “They’re classifying documents, they’re classifying notaries public, they’re changing the bylaws without the right to do so. They’ve taken this company and they’re figuring out how to steal it. They came in and they did not try to keep the status quo—no, they came in and they are trying to steal it.”
Smirnov, a legal immigrant who came to the United States decades ago during the Cold War fleeing the Soviet Union, spent decades building Glavproduct. The canning company is owned by American company Universal Beverage Co., and specializes in producing canned foods. It makes some of the best known brands in Russia, but it is—at least it was until October—American-owned. In October, Putin’s regime effectively seized the company using a blueprint it has used to take control of other major western brands operating inside Russia like dairy company Danone and beer giant Carlsberg. But Glavproduct is the first U.S.-owned company that Putin has seized, and he did it right before the U.S. presidential election when Democrats were projecting confidence that now former Vice President Kamala Harris would win in November.
The way the Russians did this is, after their invasion of Ukraine, they classified a number of countries as “unfriendly” to Russia. Any businesses operating in Russia that have connections back to so-called “unfriendly” nations—the United States is right at the top of their list, as is most of Europe—can be taken over by the Russian government, which has put them into what it calls temporary administration.
While the Kremlin supposedly put Glavproduct into temporary administration, Smirnov told Breitbart News that the people it brought in to supposedly run it have no experience in running such a company and instead they have “expropriated it.”
“This company is being destroyed as we are talking right now,” he told Breitbart News. “It is just simply being destroyed.”
Trump and Putin are both signaling they are likely to meet soon to discuss ongoing peace talks with regard to Ukraine. Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with his Russian counterpart, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, for peace talks held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, earlier this week. Trump has also escalated rhetoric against Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in recent days as he signals the United States is changing course after the Democrat-led failures under now former President Joe Biden’s administration.
Trump’s administration has thus far also, in addition to bringing the Russians to the negotiating table, secured the release of a 28-year-old American held hostage on marijuana possession charges in that country. But as for bigger concessions from the Russians, things like the handling of Glavproduct’s government takeover in Russia have yet to hit the negotiating table—at least not publicly, though it is always possible the two sides have privately discussed such things.
The White House has yet to weigh in on Glavproduct, but a State Department spokesperson told Breitbart News after an initial story on the matter from an interview with businessman and veteran Erik Prince that Putin’s regime is “contemptible” for seizing the American company.
“Putin’s thuggish actions are as contemptible as they are unsurprising,” the State Department spokesperson said. “The whole world can see that Russia’s kleptocratic environment undermines fair competition and the rule of law, making legitimate businesses susceptible to extortion and property seizures.”
Smirnov, who is beginning to speak out more, is hoping the public attention on this will catch Trump’s eye and spur him to act. In addition to this interview with Breitbart News, he also wrote an op-ed in the Washington Times this week explaining what happened to Glavproduct. He told Breitbart News he is concerned that other American companies operating in Russia—or even, God forbid, other countries like China—might be next if Putin gets away with this in the end.
“My message to President Trump is I am asking President Trump to get involved and ask Putin to remove this status from my company so I can still save it because if nothing happens quick, it’s going to be destroyed,” Smirnov told Breitbart News. “My 26 years will be destroyed. And we’ll be a good example for them as they will take another and another and another American company and of course all the millions of dollars I’ve paid over the years to the United States Treasury will be gone. But the most important thing is I am going to lose the company and I will be a good example for them to continue the attack against American companies in Russia and maybe even in other countries like the Chinese will be looking at and seeing what they can do with American investors.”
Smirnov is hoping Trump sees this interview, and springs into action like only he can in pressuring Putin to change this now.
“I would like to ask the question of President Trump if he is willing to put on his agenda negotiation of protecting American business in Russia so it will not be under ‘temporary administration,’ it will not be under ‘confiscation,’ it will not be under limitations of any kind to protect us, American businesspeople,” Smirnov said, adding that there are currently also “300 plus” American companies still operating in Russia despite some that withdrew after the Ukraine invasion and they could be next on the chopping block if Trump does not take action soon.
“There are 350 American companies there including PepsiCo, including Phillip Morris, including Mars,” Smirnov said. “These are big companies with a presence there. They can be next because they took the big European companies—Danone is a milk giant, Carlsberg is a beer giant.”
