COLUMBUS, Ind. — Russia’s attack on Ukraine has deepened fears of the potential for an expanding war in Europe for the first time in decades, which local officials say could unleash a fresh set of challenges for Bartholomew County’s economy, including its largest employer, Cummins Inc.
Russia launched a wide-ranging attack on Ukraine Thursday, unleashing airstrikes on cities and military bases and sending troops and tanks from multiple directions as civilians piled into trains and cars to flee, The Associated Press.
The attack also whiplashed global markets, initially sending stocks tumbling and the price of oil soaring as investors feared the impact of the conflict and the potential for escalating sanctions between United States, its allies and Russia. Local officials, for their part, expressed concerns that the economic fallout from a protracted war could hit Bartholomew County residents’ wallets.
“While we think we live in Columbus, Indiana, and we’re insulated from all this, we’re actually not,” said Steve Mohler, assistant professor of management at IUPUC, who frequently is on the university’s Indiana Business Outlook Panel.
Mohler said the bulk of the impact on Bartholomew County will be indirect, though Cummins may feel a “minor impact” as a worldwide supplier of diesel engines, Mohler said.
Cummins, which is headquartered in Columbus and employs about 8,000 people in the area, operates in about 190 countries around the world, including Russia, where the company has operated in one way or another since the mid-1970s when it started selling engines in imported mining dump trucks, according to the company’s website.
In 2006, Cummins formed a joint venture with KAMAZ Inc. to produce engines, according to the Cummins’ 2007 annual report. At the time, Cummins said it expected the joint ventures’ customers to include “trucks, buses and agricultural equipment produced by other manufacturers in Russia, Belarus and the Ukraine.”
Rostec, a Russian state-owned conglomerate, currently holds a 49.9% stake in KAMAZ Inc., according to the company’s website.
Cummins confirmed on Thursday that the joint venture with KAMAZ Inc. is still active. In 2018, Cummins signed a memorandum of understanding with the Russian firm involving a new product line of KAMAZ battery-powered vehicles.
Cummins also sells engines in the Russian market through a Chinese joint venture called Beijing Foton Cummins Engine Co. Ltd., according to its most recent annual report.
“Sanctions would impact our operations in Russia,” Cummins spokesman Jon Mills told The Republic.
For more on this story, see Friday’s Republic.
