In July, the government seized control of the Russian subsidiaries of French yoghurt maker Danone and Danish brewer Carlsberg. Dutch brewer Heineken said last week it had sold its Russian operations for a symbolic one euro.

The shakeout has led to several high-profile rebrandings, with Lego stores becoming “World of Cubes”, Krispy Kreme morphing into “Krunchy Dream”, and McDonald’s restaurants being relaunched as “Vkusno & tochka”, or “Tasty and that’s it”.

After the Starbucks deal, Pinskiy and Timati unveiled their new brand, Stars Coffee, in August 2022. Pinskiy later said he paid around 500 million roubles ($8 million) for the assets.

He said he had also participated in the tender to buy McDonald’s former restaurants in Russia and had even signed a preliminary contract before ultimately losing out to businessman and McDonald’s franchisee Alexander Govor.