In mid-October, signs began to emerge that French carrier Cma Cgm might be planning to restart certain activities in Russia. The first indication was a visit to St Petersburg by two of the company’s senior executives: Paul Haeri, Senior Vice President and Head of the Group CEO Office – a former French Navy officer and current coordinator of institutional relations – and Ludovic Renou, Head of the Agencies Network, who has 24 years’ experience in Asia and previously served as CEO of Cma Cgm China.
According to Mediapart, the two executives travelled to the Russian city between 15 and 19 September 2025 to inspect a company office that has been “dormant” for more than three years, ever since Russia invaded Ukraine. The French government is reportedly unaware of the visit, which, according to several French sources, was intended to prepare Cma Cgm’s potential return to Russia, including meetings with possible local partners.
Cma Cgm withdrew from its Russian operations in March 2022 through a series of divestments, including the sale of its container transport subsidiary Logoper in 2023. The company sold Logoper for a symbolic one euro to former Russian Railways executive Alexander Kakhidze, while retaining a buyback option. In air transport, the company exchanged its indirect stakes in the Moby Dik container terminal and in the Yanino logistics park, near St Petersburg, with Global Ports Investments.
A second sign comes from Russian outlets such as Infranews and Portnes, which report that Cma Cgm plans to resume calls at the port of St Petersburg in November 2025 as part of its Finland Express service. The sources even claim that the vessel North is scheduled to make its first call on 17 November. The service is expected to include calls at German ports (Bremerhaven and Hamburg), Finnish ports (Kotka, Helsinki, Rauma) and the Estonian port of Tallinn. It would be operated with vessels of between 1,380 and 1,430 TEU, with fortnightly rotations.
EU sanctions prohibit the transport of numerous goods to Russia – including chips, microprocessors, RAM, smartphones and European or American electronics – but allow shipments of food, medical and humanitarian goods, as well as certain categories of Chinese products. Cma Cgm’s service could therefore focus on these latter categories. The company’s move would thus appear to be part of a delicate exercise in geopolitical balancing: maintaining a cautious profile by voluntarily limiting operations and respecting sanctions, while keeping a strategic foothold to seize opportunities should the international sanctions landscape evolve.
