Comment on Ukraine, I Think It's Going to Be A Long Thread For A While Jump In by rick

Parent Post: Ukraine, I Think It's Going to Be A Long Thread For A While Jump In

rick · 6/4/2025, 1:10:03 AM · permalink

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Mikhail Tereshchenko / TASS

Not so long ago, Russia was rolling out the red carpet for Western tech giants. Today, President Vladimir Putin is plotting how to “strangle them.” Once welcomed as symbols of innovation and global connectedness, these companies are now being recast as enemies of the state.

“We need to strangle them … I say this without hesitation,” Putin told business leaders at a Kremlin meeting last week. He was responding to complaints from Iva Technologies CEO Stanislav Iodkovsky, who stated that Russian firms were “losing billions” because foreign companies, such as Zoom and Microsoft, had not completely withdrawn from the market.

Putin’s new plan to punish Western tech companies still operating in Russia is rich with irony. These are the same firms the Kremlin eagerly courted over the past two decades, inviting them to forums, opening sleek offices and touting their presence as proof that Russia was open for business.

Since 2022, software giant Microsoft has steadily withdrawn from Russia, halting license renewals and limiting access to its cloud services. The video conferencing platform Zoom imposed some curbs earlier, blocking companies with state-owned assets in 2021. But it was still fined in 2023 for failing to open a local office in Russia, highlighting the Kremlin’s growing pressure on Western tech firms still operating in the country.

This strategy is not just hypocritical; it is self-defeating. Russia has already done an impressive job of throttling its own IT sector. Decades of corruption, paranoia and kleptocracy have driven out much of the country’s world-class tech talent. The very people capable of building the next great Russian tech company now live in exile, from Dubai to Berlin to Yerevan.

I have met scores of these exiled Russian tech specialists since the war began. Not one plans to return, no matter what the Kremlin promises. Subsidized mortgages, draft exemptions, relocation perks — all of it rings hollow when trust has been shattered.  
  
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2025/06/03/how-putin-turned-against-tech-and-strangled-russias-silicon-dreams-a89316

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