Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 marked not only a military but also an economic turning point in the international order. The mass withdrawal of multinational corporations (MNCs) from Russia demonstrated that geopolitical risk had begun to outweigh the benefits of global economic interdependence. But if corporate exit is one indicator of the beginning of a new “age of wars”, the gradual return of MNCs could be an indicator of its eventual end. Corporate return should not, however, be measured as a binary variable of returned/not returned. It is better understood as a sequence of increasingly costly and difficult-to-reverse commitments. This paper proposes a “corporate re-entry ladder” ranging from renewed institutional contacts and market reconnaissance to direct commercial presence and, ultimately, irreversible capital investment. The critical indicator of geopolitical normalization is therefore not the return of the first Western brand. It is the moment when MNCs once again become willing to risk capital on the assumption that political stability will endure for the next 10–20 years.