Guests huddled beneath a leaden Moscow sky as the opening chimes of Tchaikovsky’s Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy rang out across a car park. On cue, a fleet of JCBs rumbled into life to begin their favourite party trick: the dancing diggers.
It was October 2016 and JCB, one of the UK’s biggest privately owned companies, was celebrating the opening of a 2bn rouble (£25m) factory on the outskirts of the capital. The factory would assemble and service JCBs but had been paid for by its Russian dealer, Lonmadi.
