Le Monde reported that the Russian branch of France's largest food supplier, Sodexo, has served the construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline near the city of Kingisepp in the Leningrad region, 30 km from the Estonian border.
The French company has never made the contract public and kept it a secret until it withdraws from Russia in 2022. Currently an official partner of the Paris Olympics, Sodexo said it has not violated any sanctions.
Sodexo's contract in Russia with Russian oil and gas giant Gazprom is the most profitable and "secret" contract - one of Sodexo's former Russian managers told Le Monde.
According to the company's documents cited by Le Monde, Sodexo is in charge of providing food and infrastructure services such as generators and water treatment at the construction site of Gazprom's Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline.
Nord Stream 2 is a gas pipeline running along the bottom of the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany. The construction of Nord Stream 2 took place from the beginning of 2018 to September 2021. Initially, the operation of the pipeline was delayed amid rising tensions on the Russia-Ukraine border, and was later completely called off due to Russia's military campaign in Ukraine. In September 2022, Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 in the Baltic Sea were blown up after a sabotage.
Le Monde reported that in 2017, Sodexo's representative office in Russia, Sodexo EuroAsia, won a million-dollar bid package to provide services for the Nord Stream 2 construction project.
Some Sodexo EuroAsia staff said that although the contract was signed legally, the French company did not want to widely announce this project due to image risks. A Le Monde source explained: We do not want to be accused of collaborating with a country that is under sanctions.
After Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, the European Union (EU) has imposed sanctions on Gazprom Neft, Nord Stream's main shareholder.
Instead of working directly with Nord Stream AG - the company in charge of Nord Stream 2, Sodexo signed a contract with one of Russia's subcontractors, STEP in St. Petersburg, according to a former employee. Petersburg, a company specializing in industrial construction.
After Russia began its military campaign in Ukraine in February 2022, Sodexo, like most Western companies, announced its withdrawal from Russia.
Sodexo's branch has been operating in the Russian market since 1993 and has recruited about 4,500 employees. Le Monde pointed out that in April 2022, Sodexo's ownership and asset management rights were transferred to the local board of directors at the " 1 ruble symbolic price".
Since 2018, the Sodexo branch in Russia has been led by Andrey Zhavoronkov, a former employee of the Finnish textile company Lindström.
However, in 2019, there were reports that Zhavoronkov's father was a senior Soviet officer, and that Zhavoronkov himself had hidden from the company his cooperative relationship with Russian intelligence from the mid-1990s to the early 2000s.
Tonarm Company, founded by Zhavoronkov in 1996, provided the service to the FSB. Another company, RCSI FORT, founded in 2004, is responsible for the computer security of the Russian interior ministry.
The two former Russian managers of Sodexo said that a confidential report on this data was moved back to the group's headquarters in Paris in 2019, but no action was taken.
Sodexo's media representative told Le Monde that they did not know anything about these "connections" and could not confirm or deny whether they had received documents containing such information 5 years ago.
