Russia divestment promises by US states largely unfulfilled
Driven by moral outrage over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine earlier this year, U.S. governors and other top state officials made it clear: They wanted to cut their financial ties with Russia.
A few states quickly followed through. Idaho sold $300,000 of bonds in a Russian oil company in early March. A day before the invasion, the Kentucky Teachers Retirement System sold its shares in the Russian bank Sberbank.
But those examples are outliers. Six months into a war that has killed thousands of Ukrainians and displaced over 12 million more, most of the pledges to drop Russian investments — some made with great fanfare during news conferences — have gone unfulfilled, according to an Associated Press review, state retirement administrators and firms that invest state funds.