As the Russian invasion of Ukraine continues, several countries and international corporations have implemented sanctions against Russia.
Technological sanctions have included Apple suspending all of its product sales, as well as restricting several of its digital services such as Apple Pay and Apple Maps. Microsoft followed suit by suspending its own new product sales, and each company removed Russia Today, a Russian-controlled media outlet, from their respective app stores.
“Ukraine has the support of several tech companies,” said Andrew Besmer, an associate professor of computer science at Winthrop. “Google is providing several Ukrainian websites access to Project Shield in order to provide some sort of stable communications. It could damage morale amongst Ukrainian citizens to see that any of their governmental websites have been taken down by Russian cyberattacks.”
According to Google, Project Shield, an anti-DDoS service, is currently protecting over 150 Ukrainian websites.
In response to technology sanctions, the Ministry of Economic Development of Russia has released a document known as the “Priority Action Plan for Ensuring the Development of the Russian Economy in the Conditions of External Sanctions Pressure,” which lays out several mechanisms to prevent the economic impact that any sanctions may have.
For example, measure 6.7.3 states that citizens will have a “cancellation of liability for the use of software unlicensed in the Russian Federation, owned by a copyright holder from countries that have supported the sanctions.” In effect, this would legalize the use of cracked or pirated software of companies that withdraw their presence from the country.
“It would make it more difficult for companies to return after the war. If intellectual property rights were disregarded now, many foreign companies would be unwilling to re-invest or return to the country, given the insecurity of their assets, especially with the prospect of nationalization,” said Danko Tarabar, an associate professor of economics at Winthrop.
“Many companies would refuse to do business there. Russian workers would have to leave the country to work at these companies, leading to loss of talent in Russia — a form of brain drain.”
Media giants WarnerMedia and Disney have ceased content distribution within Russia, preventing the release of new films and shows in the region.
In response to media sanctions, State Duma Deputy Dmitry Ionin proposed unblocking RuTracker, a popular pirating website that is blocked by default by all internet service providers in Russia, allowing Russian citizens to more easily access blocked media.
Piracy is already popular among Russian citizens. In a 2019 study performed by Russian software company ESET, it was reported that up to 91% of respondents used some form of illegally obtained software.
Parallel to technology and media sanctions have been the withdrawal of several restaurant chains, such as McDonald’s. In response to McDonald’s exit, Russia nationalized all of the corporation’s assets within the country and rebranded each of the same locations as a new franchise called “Uncle Vanya,” with an uncannily similar-looking logo.
