Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered that Germany's Wintershall Dea and Austria's OMV be stripped of multibillion-dollar stakes in gas extraction projects in Russia's Arctic. Under the presidential decrees published late on December 19, stakes held by OMV and Wintershall Dea in the Yuzhno-Russkoye field and in the Achimov projects are to revert to newly created Russian companies. The Kremlin's biggest seizure of foreign assets in Russia comes after what Putin casts as a declaration of economic war by the West over Russia's decision to send thousands of troops into Ukraine in February 2022.
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