Authorities mull idea of restricting foreign cloud services in Russia
The Ministry of Digital Development, Communications, and Mass Media does not rule out the possibility of gradually blocking foreign cloud services if they have Russian equivalents. This was stated on 29 May by Ministry chief Maksut Shadaev.
As he put it, there is now a certain "conflict in what users are accustomed to." These foreign services actually left Russia, but Russian businesses are still getting those services "under the counter." "Although if the companies are not operating [in Russia], if they made a great show of leaving, it's strange that we continue paying for those services," Shadaev said.
He pointed out that Russian companies are having trouble working with foreign services, including trouble paying for them. Meanwhile, faced with a tough macroeconomic situation and high Bank of Russia interest rates, many major clients are cutting their IT budgets, and the situation in the IT sector is "fraught," he added.
"And this being the case, our viewpoint is that the major corporations could think about gradually limiting their use of foreign cloud services wherever there are well-established Russian equivalents," Shadaev said. Such a decision would give Russian companies the opportunity to make extra money, he added.
Shadaev recalled what President Vladimir Putin said on 26 May at a meeting with business leaders when he called for Western services such as Zoom and Microsoft, which officially ceased operating in Russia but were effectively still on the market, to be "strangled." "The president said we would strangle them. Overall I would look at this in a broader context. It is clear that this sector is developing at a rapid pace in our country," Shadaev said, commenting on the president's speech.
Since January 2022 a "law on onshoring" has been in force in Russia which obligates foreign IT companies with a daily audience of more than 500,000 users to open a branch office in the country. Failure to meet this requirement entails a ban on advertising and accepting payments from Russian individuals and companies, and even blocking of the resource in Russia.
Among the companies that have met the Russian authorities' requirements are Apple, AliExpress, LikeMe, and Viber, while Google, TikTok, Zoom, and others have partially "onshored."