How does just war theory classify Russia's war against Ukraine, and what does that imply for companies?

As an unjust war: an unprovoked aggression against a sovereign state, accompanied by human-rights violations against civilians. This supports the claim that companies there operate in a state committing grave, state-organised wrongs and have a moral obligation to stop and leave.

Two principles of just war theory do the work:

• Defending a state's sovereignty against an aggressor is the most important just cause for war. Ukraine has been a sovereign state since 1991 and posed no real threat to Russia, so the attack counts as unprovoked aggression. Defending one's territory also makes it morally justified to fight the combatants of the unjust side.
• The principle of discrimination requires belligerents to distinguish between soldiers and civilians and to attack only soldiers. Reports of rape, looting, targeted killing of civilians and missile strikes on hospitals show this principle being violated.

Hence the starting position of the debate: companies in Russia do business in a country that wages an unjust war and commits severe, state-organised human-rights violations. That is the basis for the demand that they ought to leave.