Russia tightens measures against Western IT companies

Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin wants to block the services of Western IT companies that have left Russia.

“They must be curbed,” Putin said at a meeting with Russian entrepreneurs. The West wants to strangle Russia, so you have to repay like with like, demanded the 72-year-old. He also promised other industries protection measures.

This was preceded by a complaint from a Russian IT manager about billions in losses for domestic technology companies. The industry was suffering from the fact that many Russians continued to rely on Zoom or Microsoft. Putin promised to “free citizens from their bad habits”. Putin also criticized virtual foreign trading platforms as a “hole” through which all sorts of things are imported into Russia.

Russia has already throttled the network speed of many foreign online services. This means that Russians can practically no longer use YouTube without a virtual private network (VPN), as videos take too long to load. Russia is building the video platform RUTube in parallel. Facebook and Instagram have also been classified as extremist since the start of the war and have therefore been blocked. The authorities have also already blocked many major VPN providers to prevent Russians from surfing the net uncontrollably via detours.

dpa