Bacardi partners with billionaire Russian oligarch and member of Putin’s ‘inner circle’ for its bottling needs near Moscow

A screenshot from a Russian video posted on You Tube last year touting Bacardi's Oakheart rum that's bottled a Russian distillery owned by a company controlled by billionaire Arkady Rotenberg, a longtime member of President Vladimir Putin's "inner circle.".

By Dan Christensen, FloridaBulldog.org

Since 2022, the world has watched in horror as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and targeting of civilians have left hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians dead or wounded, forced 5.6 million Ukrainians to seek refuge abroad and displaced millions more inside the country.

Through it all, Bacardi, the privately held spirits giant with substantial U.S. operations headquartered in Coral Gables, has continued to do business in Russia, even as its biggest competitors departed amid U.S. sanctions and international criticism.

Shortly after the invasion, and under the leadership of Bacardi Chairman Facundo Bacardi, the company issued a press release declaring its “support for Ukraine.” The company declared it had stopped exports to Russia “and froze advertising investments in the market.” But those company claims were soon removed from that press release, a search of the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine shows, and a business thaw followed. The reversal prompted Ukraine’s National Agency on Corruption Prevention to add Bermuda-based Bacardi Ltd. to its list of international war sponsors in 2023.

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Bacardi partners with billionaire Russian oligarch and member of Putin’s ‘inner circle’ for its bottling needs near Moscow

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