This year’s St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF), which opened on June 3, is the fifth to be held since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Before the war, the forum served as a venue for signing major investment agreements with foreign companies. Back then, the European Union was Russia’s key economic partner, and the forum attracted prominent Western politicians, business leaders and senior executives.
But after Russia invaded Ukraine, major Western economies scaled back ties and the forum’s highest-profile foreign attendees have increasingly come from countries that are no longer among Moscow’s key economic partners.
This year, the leaders of Uzbekistan and Tanzania, Shavkat Mirziyoyev and Samia Suluhu Hassan, are set to share the stage at a joint panel with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Is there a German delegation in St. Petersburg?
Something that has made headlines in Russian media in the days leading up to the forum though is an alleged return of German businesses to SPIEF. However, the companies attending the event appear to have very little connection to Germany.
According to Putin’s special envoy for investment and economic cooperation with foreign countries, Kirill Dmitriev, Russia is looking forward to welcoming “a large delegation of German companies” in St. Petersburg.
Russian business daily Kommersant also reported that “Germany is sending an official business delegation” to the event for the first time in many years. But in reality, there is no such delegation.
Hypermarkets and Germany’s Globus Holding
Among the forum attendees, according to the official program, is Thomas Bruch, a shareholder in the German retail chain operator Globus and one of Germany’s wealthiest businessmen. Bruch is ranked 2,386th on the 2026 Forbes Billionaires List, with an estimated net worth of $1.7 billion (€1.4 billion).
Bruch is not participating in the forum on behalf of Germany’s Globus Holding, its spokesperson told DW. He also emphasized that since January 2025 the company’s Russian stores are no longer part of Globus Holding, which operates supermarkets in Germany and the Czech Republic.
In St. Petersburg, Bruch is representing Russian Hyperglobus, which operates hypermarkets solely in Russia, the spokesperson said. He added that the aim of Bruch’s participation in SPIEF is “to maintain business contacts and exchange views with representatives of the business community and government agencies.”
Russian milk producer Ekoniva
The business path of another German participant, Stefan Dürr, is completely linked to Russia.
His Ekoniva Group is one of the country’s largest milk producers. In 1989, while a student at the University of Bayreuth, Dürr undertook an internship at an agricultural enterprise near Moscow and later began cultivating buckwheat and millet in Russia.
In an interview with the Financial Times last year, Dürr said Russia’s 2014 embargo on EU products, imposed in response to Western sanctions after the annexation of Crimea, was one of the biggest drivers of his company’s growth.
The businessman himself advised Putin to impose the ban, the Swiss newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung reported in 2023. In addition to being German, Dürr has held Russian citizenship since 2013, according to numerous reports.
A spokesperson for Ekoniva confirmed that Dürr is participating in the St. Petersburg forum. He did not answer DW’s questions about the purpose of his visit, though.
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Industrial equipment and engineering
Another entrepreneur mentioned in the SPIEF program is Leo Eppinger. According to business verification platform SPARK Interfax, he also holds both Russian and German citizenships.
In 2016, after graduating from a university in Moscow, Eppinger became head of the Russian office of German-Swedish joint venture Metalock Engineering, according to his profiles on Facebook and Xing.
After the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Metalock Engineering ceased all cooperation with its Russian subsidiary and currently “has no business relations with Masterlock, the company founded by Mr. Eppinger,” a spokesman for Metalock Engineering told DW.
The company Masterlock Engineering he referred to is registered in the Moscow region. It calls itself a “full successor” of Metalock Rus, the Russian branch of German-Swedish Metalock, and focuses on repairing industrial equipment in Russia and the CIS countries, according to its website.
The Russian branch of Metalock Engineering was transformed into the similarly sounding Masterlock Engineering in 2024, their website says. Leo Eppinger did not respond to DW’s questions.
Polina Sharova is another confirmed forum participant. She owns Yekaterinburg-based Hermes-Ural, a manufacturer of industrial equipment.
Sharova’s only link to Germany is the acquisition of the Russian assets of German industrial group Viessmann Climate Solutions following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Neither Hermes-Ural nor Viessmann responded to DW’s request for comment.
What remains of Russian-German trade?
The St. Petersburg Economic Forum is hosting several lawmakers from Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), who serve in the European Parliament, the German Bundestag and regional parliaments across Germany.
The owner of Germany’s daily newspaper Berliner Zeitung Holger Friedrich is also attending the forum. Meanwhile, former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder was spotted in Moscow on the eve of the forum, German broadcaster ntv reported. It remains unclear whether he will attend the event in St. Petersburg.
The composition of what Russian officials and media describe as a “German delegation” offers an accurate reflection of the current state of economic relations between the two countries.
Sanctions, corporate exits and an energy decoupling from Russia have taken their toll. In 2025, bilateral trade fell below €10 billion, down sharply from nearly €60 billion in 2021.
The German-Russian Chamber of Commerce, a Moscow-based lobby group that has no links to the German government, declined to comment on the German participants at the meeting, referring to DW’s status in Russia.
As part of its crackdown on independent media Russia designated DW as an “undesirable” organization in December. Any cooperation with such an organization is a criminal offense, according to Russian law.
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