Ukraine once again criticized the French brand Auchan on Wednesday for maintaining its subsidiary in Russia, while a shopping center where the group is present was hit in Kiev by fragments of Russian shells. “Fragments of a destroyed Russian missile hit a shopping center in Kiev, where the Auchan supermarket is located,” the Ukrainian Defense Ministry wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
“Auchan continues its work in Russia, pays taxes, finances the war and suffers Russian attacks. Cynicism, masochism or stupidity? Leave Russia: this money is too bloody,” he added. With “more than twenty enemy targets destroyed”, the Ukrainian capital was targeted on Wednesday morning by the largest drone and missile attack “since the spring”, which killed two people, according to the military authorities of the city.
Kiev regularly crushes Western brands which have chosen to continue their activities in Russia since the start of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Auchan generates more than 10% of its sales in Russia. In February, the distributor “categorically denied” having contributed to the Russian war effort after the publication of an investigation in the French daily Le Monde. kyiv then accused him of being “a full-fledged weapon of Russian aggression”.
A year earlier, the Ukrainian government had called for a boycott of Auchan, which has been established for a long time in both countries and which remains in Russia, unlike many other commercial brands which have chosen to leave there.