In a continuation of its strategy to absorb foreign economic presence, the Russian state has ordered the seizure of Nestle and Auchan's Russian operations, two multinationals that had maintained footholds even as many Western peers withdrew. The move reflects a deliberate Kremlin calculus — consolidating control over essential sectors while signaling to the remaining Western business community that the cost of staying has grown prohibitive. It is a chapter in the long, unresolved tension between global commerce and sovereign assertion, playing out now in the aisles of hypermarkets and on the s