Mary Assunta, Dmytro Kupyra
In war, there are no winners, only horrifying suffering, devastation and deaths. Yet, even in the face of human adversity and humanitarian turmoil, some harmful industries exploit these crises to continue profiting. Among them is the tobacco industry, which continues to operate and profit in warn-torn areas while its customers are left homeless, displaced and hungry.
How tobacco companies benefitted from wars since World War I is well documented. According to Smith and Malone in Wartime promotion in the US military, tobacco companies “targeted troops with free cigarettes, direct advertising, branded items, and “welcome home” events.”
Today, despite global recognition of tobacco’s harm, the industry persists in driving its business in countries ravaged by war and crises. More recently, the tobacco industry provided free cigarettes for Ukrainian recruits trained in the UK.
After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in March 2022, triggering western sanctions, many large transnational corporations, including tobacco companies, pledged to pull out of Russia. For instance, Philip Morris International (PMI), British American Tobacco (BAT) and Japan Tobacco International (JTI) announced they will exit the Russian market. However, their actions have not matched their words as PMI and JTI still remain deeply rooted in the Russian market.
Russia is an important market for both PMI and JTI. Russia had accounted for about 10% of PMI’s tobacco product sales and 6% of its $31 billion in net revenue in 2021. PMI sold about 49 billion cigarettes in the country where its operations own $2.7 billion in total assets. In February 2023, PMI admitted it would rather keep its business in Russia, although it has suspended new investment and scaled down operations. In contrast, some of the world’s biggest international business have sold, walked away or written their remaining shareholdings down to zero.
Similarly, JTI, which derives 20% of its overall profits from the Russian tobacco market, decided, in May 2024, to retain its Russian business to satisfy investors, despite prior announcement of withdrawal in 2022. JTI has more than 4,000 employees and four factories in Russia, one of the largest foreign companies left in the country.
In war-torn Ukraine, PMI controls about a quarter (24%) of the cigarette market. After temporarily suspending its production in 2022, PMI continued to supply its cigarettes to Ukraine from eight factories outside the country and by partnering with Imperial Brands which still operates in Ukraine. It reportedly restored its business within a week since the beginning of the full-scale war and resumed its operations with retailers.
In October 2022, the Ukrainian government applied a 5-year sanction on PMI and JTI for being “sponsors of war”. Despite this, in May 2024, PMI opened a $30 million cigarette factory in Ukraine’s Lviv region, claiming it is committed to investing in Ukraine, even during the war. JTI restructured its business in response to the wide-ranging sanctions, stating that, “it’s business as usual,” noting that reputational questions about doing business in Russia were becoming less of an issue.
In Africa, Sudan has been in a state of civil war since April 2023 resulting in appalling humanitarian situation with more than 8 million people fleeing their homes, 25 million people enduring severe hunger and half the country’s population needing vital aid. This crisis affected BAT’s manufacture and sales of cigarettes. To fix this, BAT lobbied the Pakistani government to amend their law which bans manufacture of kiddy packs so BAT can produce 10-stick packs in Pakistan for export to Sudan, exposed the Guardian. Cheap 10-stick packs are smoked by the poor.
The crisis in the Syrian Arab Republic, now in its 13th year, has forcibly displaced over 12 million people across the region. Yet, the country remains a tobacco exporter. In 2023, the World Bank database recorded Syria exported cigar or cigarette holders and parts to top importers Lebanon ($771.68K, 54,174 Kg), Jordan ($44.37K , 3,115 Kg) and Qatar ($31.80K, 2,233 Kg).
Yemen has been in conflict for the past nine years and its humanitarian crisis among the worst in the world. According to UNICEF, about 9.8 million children are in need of one or more forms of humanitarian assistance. In 2019, Yemen imported $15,957.65K worth of cigarettes (3,361,440Kg), mainly from United Arab Emirates.
The former British Ambassador to Yemen in late 2019 attended the opening of a factory owned by the Yemeni government, cigarette manufacturer Kamaran, and a third by BAT, as exposed by the University of Bath’s Tobacco Control Research Group. The Ambassador had endorsed the factory saying it would be a valuable investment for BAT and the Yemeni economy. He later admitted it was a mistake and that he had no intention of promoting the tobacco company.
In Palestine, according to the Central Bureau of Statistics, 85% of men and 32% of women smoke cigarettes. WHO data in 2020 showed the cheapest pack of local brand of cigarettes cost $2.35 while an imported brand cost $14.35. But since the recent war on Gaza, smuggling of commercial goods has worsened, inflating the price of cigarettes to an astronomical $20.00 for a single stick provided mainly through illegal channels.
Tobacco control advocates are exposing the tobacco industry’s unethical practices to undermine public policy through the Global Tobacco Industry Interference Index. In Ukraine, the labelling of PMI and JTI as “sponsors of war” as documented in the country index goes some way to denormalise an industry that continues to sell a harmful and addictive product and hold it accountable. Some tobacco industry proponents might argue that continuing with business as usual provides jobs and income. In reality, continued trade of the world’s most lethal consumer products prolongs and exacerbates the hardships of war, and sets the scene for an increased burden of poverty, morbidity and mortality well into the future.
What will it take to stop this industry that profits from an addictive product even in crisis and war?
Mary Assunta is the head of global research and advocacy at the Global Center for Good Governance in Tobacco Control, Thailand; and Dmytro Kupyra is the Executive Director of LIFE, Ukraine.