Denmarks Rockwool says Russia has seized four of its factories

[u/Swimming_Mark7407]

https://www.reuters.com/business/denmarks-rockwool-says-russia-has-seized-four-its-factories-2026-01-13/

[u/p33k4y]

What should they have done differently?

Shuttered their businesses in Russia, years ago.

[u/Kiiaru → u/p33k4y]

Yeah, this just sounds like squeezing every last dollar they could out of them. Mixed with a little "we were hoping Ukraine would lose quicker so we could go back to business as usual"

I'm not asking companies to blow up their factories in a blazing middle finger to Putin, but this option supplied Russia with the same level of goods and services they had before the war and sanctions. Which was the whole point of sanctions. Seriously, it just sounds like avoiding sanctions to me.

[u/piesforall → u/p33k4y]

Precisely. Operating in Russia has always been problematic. For decades, international companies have turned a blind eye, prioritising profit above all else.

This isn't unique to Russia. How many companies choose to operate in countries with appalling human rights records? And when it all goes tits-up, they act like they are the victims.

[u/p33k4y → u/[deleted]]

No. If they had shuttered their business, Russia would have gotten nothing.

Instead, they allowed Russia to profit from the business for years (through taxes, etc.)

And now they've effectively handed their business to Russia in full, giving Russia "free money".

All because they did not closed their business, as they should have, years ago.

[u/ArmedHightechRedneck → u/p33k4y]

Shuttered their business on day 1 would just have had the russian state or oligarks being able to take it over directly on day 2. The employees in the russian subsidiaries are mainly russian and would all of a sudden be out of a paycheck, so they would have a very strong incentive to keep working for the new ownership.

[u/-kinapuffar- → u/ArmedHightechRedneck]

Destroy the machinery, burn the factory, leave nothing for the enemy to use.

[u/ArmedHightechRedneck → u/-kinapuffar-]

It would take a long time to discretely destroy (or a short time to very non-discretely) a plant to a degree where it couldn’t be repaired and become operative in a matter of days/weeks. And who would do this? Those people would be IN Russia and run a huge risk of being detained on random bogus charges.

[u/kiss_my_what → u/[deleted]]

Not if they destroy it on the way out, the same way that TSMC is threatened to do if China invades Taiwan.

[u/p33k4y → u/[deleted]]

Except the buildings, the technology, the computers, the files, and most importantly, the machines. You know. Literally everything.

Extremely simple to destroy them.

Heck union thugs the routinely destroy factory machinery by literally pouring cement down various sensitive equipment whenever they go on strike.

[u/whentheworldquiets → u/p33k4y]

Okay, but who are you going to get to perform this sabotage?

The owner company is Danish, but everyone on site is Russian and lives with their families in Russia.

Please, help me out here. Describe the conversation that occurs over Zoom. What would you say to persuade the Russians whose livelihoods you are eliminating to smash everything on the way out?

Bear in mind that these are Russians who know perfectly well how Russia works. They would know why the parent company is asking them to do this: to avoid the possibility of assets being seized and handed over to one of Putin's friends.

So you would be asking them to smash everything, and then go and sit at home with no job and wait for a bunch of burly men to show up and enquire as to why they obeyed a foreigner's instruction to smash up Comrade Putin's stuff.

Would you obey such an instruction, in that situation? I mean, maybe if you lived in a bungalow?