A Tucker Carlson YouTube show about Russia’s wonderful supermarkets was probably not the kind of global publicity French retailer Auchan was looking for.
From the start of Vladimir Putin’s full-scale assault on Ukraine, the company owned by the very private Mulliez family has pushed back against activists’ calls to leave Russia. Just as such pressure seemed to be abating, the former Fox News commentator, fresh from his two-hour interview with the Russian president, stepped into one of the group’s Moscow hypermarkets with a camera crew in tow.
The Donald Trump supporter seemed to have a blast wandering along the richly stacked aisles, smelling loaves of bread and marvelling at the coin-operated shopping trolleys — all to demonstrate the resilience of the Russian economy despite a raft of western sanctions.