Why did the U.S. subsidiary that owns Stoli vodka (and many other alcohol brands) recently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection? The most obvious answer is that everyone in America has stopped drinking alcohol, right? But if only every complex question could be answered plain and simple! Unfortunately, this is a dark tale twisted in time that arguably started with a countertrade agreement that eventually involved Pepsi owning a fleet of Soviet military ships. No really…watch the related video I tagged. But things never seemed less complicated with Stoli (even into the 2000s), as its billionaire owner was exiled from his home country because of opposition to President Vladimir Putin. And if that wasn’t bad enough, an ongoing legal battle with Russia (and recent cyber-attack) left the company’s finances and global operations in dismay…thus providing the more complicated answer around bankruptcy.