According to an investigation published by The Telegraph, in just six months of Russia’s full-scale attack on Ukraine, tobacco companies paid more than $7 billion to the Russian treasury, said Dmytro Kupyra, executive director of the NGO Life, in an interview with investigative journalist Yevhen Plinsky.
“Vogue Ukraine has calculated that the taxes paid by tobacco giant Philip Morris to the budget of the aggressor country in 2020 – $2.98 billion – could have bought 745 tanks or 458 Kalibr missiles. JTI paid $3.6 billion in 2020, and this money could have been used to buy 327 SU-25 aircraft or manufacture 288 Smerch-M missile systems,” said Yevhen Plinsky.
In turn, Bloomberg estimates that in 2021, Philip Morris International and JTI paid about 200 billion rubles (about 3.3 billion US dollars) in taxes and fees in Russia, which is another half of the list of weapons from the Vogs Ukraine list.
The investigative journalist noted that after the full-scale invasion, many international companies operating in Russia left the market of the aggressor country, but not international tobacco corporations such as Philip Morris International, JTI, Imperial Tobacco, British American Tobacco. They continue to work in Russia and fill the budget of the Russian Federation, despite the statements about leaving the market of the terrorist country. In other words, by filling the treasury of the Russian Federation, tobacco corporations are actually killing Ukrainians with this “blood money.”
“The money paid to the budget of the aggressor country is used to manufacture weapons, which means millions of bullets, thousands of tanks that are sent to kill Ukrainians,” added Serhiy Myktalyk, executive director of the Anti-Corruption Headquarters NGO.
Plinsky, in turn, noted that the approximate budget of the Kremlin’s army is 65-66 billion. dollars, i.e. more than 10% of the defense budget of the aggressor country was made up of money from tobacco companies such as Philip Morris International, JTI, etc.
And analysts from the Kyiv School of Economics have calculated that the money Philip Morris International earned in Russia in 2022 could buy 4,900 Kalibr missiles, 78 fifth-generation Su-57 fighters, or 1,089 T-90 tanks.