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

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.

Facundo Bacardi is the great-great-grandson of company founder Don Facundo Bacardí Massó.

Ukraine’s list was retired in 2024 following pressure from foreign diplomats who objected to companies from their home countries being publicly listed as bad actors.

Meanwhile, Bacardi’s Russian subsidiary, Bacardi Rus LLC, used its near-market exclusivity — competitors like Brown-Forman, maker of Jack Daniel’s; Diageo; Moët Hennessy; and Pernod Ricard had departed — to grow its market share virtually unimpeded. The investigative news site The Insider reported July 27 that Bacardi Rus posted revenue that rose 71.5% from about $380 million in 2021 to nearly $573 million in 2025.

BACARDI AND THE BILLIONAIRE

But Bacardi may soon face renewed international criticism while it continues to operate inside Russia as the bloody war drags on. In 2025, Bacardi partnered with Russian billionaire Arkady Rotenberg, an oligarch and close confidant of Russian President Vladimir Putin whose vast holdings include a liquor bottling plant south of Moscow.

U.S. sources say Rotenberg, 72, built his wealth through state-awarded infrastructure and energy contracts through companies including SGM Group and Mostotrest, Russia’s largest road and bridge builder.

For more than a decade, however, Rotenberg’s status as a “member of the inner circle” supporting Putin, who has been accused of war crimes, has made him a focus of U.S. economic sanctions.

In 2014, after Russia seized Crimea, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned Rotenberg, his brother Boris Rotenberg and 14 others “for acting for or on behalf of or materially assisting, sponsoring, or providing financial, material, or technological support for, or goods or services to or in support of, a senior official of the Government of the Russian Federation.”

In OFAC’s sanctions announcement, the brothers were described as “members of the inner circle” of Putin’s regime who supported “Putin’s pet projects” by receiving and executing high-priced contracts for the (2014) Sochi Olympic Games and state-controlled Gazprom (The world’s biggest maker and seller of natural gas). They have made billions of dollars in contracts for Gazprom and the Sochi Winter Olympics awarded to them by Putin,” OFAC said. “Both brothers have amassed enormous amounts of wealth during the years of Putin’s rule in Russia. The Rotenberg brothers received approximately $7 billion in contracts for the Sochi Olympic Games and their personal wealth has increased by $2.5 billion in the last two years alone.”

In May 2022, the brothers were added to the State Department’s list of Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons. All their property and interests in property in the U.S. are blocked.

BACARDI CONTRACT’S WITH ROTENBERG’S DISTILLERY

They and other members of the Rotenberg family remain on U.S. sanctions lists today.

Arkady Rotenberg came to public attention again in early 2021 after the late Russian dissident Alexei Navalny released a video about his investigation of an opulent estate on Russia’s Black Sea coast dubbed “Putin’s Palace,” alleging it was paid for by more than $1 billion in bribes. Shortly after the film’s release, Rotenberg claimed he owned the property.

Bacardi has a contract with Arkady Rotenberg’s Tula Distillery 1911, located about 130 miles south of Moscow, to bottle Bacardi Oakheart spiced rum and its Bosford gin brand using raw materials imported by a Swiss company, Tradall S.A., according to The Insider and other sources. Tradall is also a Bacardi subsidiary. Rotenberg’s company, Rosspirtprom JSC, purchased a controlling stake in the distillery in 2025.

The Insider reported in January that the use of imported raw materials is “a scheme” that saves Bacardi on excise taxes. How much Bacardi pays was not reported. Ukraine’s National Agency on Corruption Prevention reported in 2023 that data on Russia’s Federal Tax Service website showed that in 2022 Bacardi Rus paid Russia more than $12 million in income taxes alone.

The news site also reported that Bacardi has another politically connected contract partner to bottle its line of Martini & Rossi products in Russia. The bottler is in Dagestan on the Caspian Sea and is owned by a company controlled by the family of Zaur Askenderov, speaker of the People’s Assembly and head of the United Russia faction in the republic’s parliament.

The arrangement underscores how Bacardi’s continued operations in Russia could draw fresh scrutiny from governments, sanctions experts and critics of companies still doing business there.