MOSCOW, may 16. /TASS/. Russian companies, placed under Ukrainian sanctions, claiming that these measures will not impact on their work and will not affect the business.
Political analysts believe that the actions of the Ukrainian authorities, similar to the attempt to introduce censorship in the country and have a negative impact on the Ukrainians. Which, however, will find ways to bypass the blocking of social networks, as Russian companies will find ways to neutralize the negative effect on business.
Tuesday was the decree of the President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko on the extension of economic sanctions against Russians and Russian companies. Updated the sanctions list included a number of Russian media and IT companies, including RBC TV, “TV Center”, VGTRK and “NTV Plus” and “star”, the developers of anti-virus software “Kaspersky Lab” and Dr. Web. In addition, the ban came Mail.ru Group and included in it the social network “Vkontakte” and “Classmates” as well as “Yandex” and all its services.
According to Kiev, Russian social networks were allegedly used for “illegal collection of information, propaganda, recruitment agents, as well as the spread of pirated content.” Now the Ukrainian providers will be required to block access to these resources for three years.
Calmness, only calmness
In “Yandex” believe that Ukrainian sanctions will have no impact on the company’s business and will hurt more Ukrainian users. In his statement, “Yandex” reported that working in Ukraine since 2005 and has 11 million Ukrainian users. And while sanctions “nullify all long-term efforts” in the local market, there is no negative impact on the company they will not have.
This news about the sanctions, the shares of “Yandex” at the auction of the Moscow exchange grew in the range of 2%, after a decline of 3.3%. Following the auction, the rates decreased only 0,49%.
Mail.ru Group said that will not update the financial projections due to sanctions, the Ukraine, as that country’s share of the total business of the group is small. The company also assured that all obligations to employees, partners and customers on the territory of Ukraine will be fulfilled in full.
“NTV Plus” and RBC also confirmed that the sanctions will not affect the operation of the channels. “For business “NTV Plus” the ban is immaterial and financial results will not affect”, – said General Director of TV channel Mikhail Demin. Press Secretary of RBC Egor Timofeev said that the sanctions will not affect the activities of a group of companies “because RBC does not conduct business in the territory of Ukraine”.
In “Kaspersky Lab”, which is similar to the measures referred to earlier (in 2016 the company decided to close the regional office in connection with the fact that the government of Ukraine has limited foreign economic activity of Kaspersky Lab Ukraine), said that the company’s products are still being sold in Ukraine through distribution channels. “The new sanctions also will not have a significant impact on the situation,” the company said, stressing that “Kaspersky Lab” has no political ties with any governments or countries, and does not take sides in geopolitical issues.
However, some companies still assess the situation. For example, in ABBYY (developer in the field of intelligent information processing and linguistics) said that studying the impact of the decision of the Ukrainian authorities. “1C” on request TASS did not answer.
Users will find loopholes
Deputy Minister of Telecom and mass communications of the Russian Federation Alexei Volin said that the people of Ukraine that use placed under sanctions by the popular Russian Internet services, “instantly” learn the ways to bypass the blocking of these resources. This in turn will lead to raising the General level of computer literacy in the country. Ukrainian users will learn anonymizers, VPNs and other devices and programs that allow you to bypass the lock, I’m sure Wolin.
He noted that the blocking is effective only in the case when the locked resources “is a broad public consensus” (e.g., negative attitude to child pornography, propaganda of drugs or suicide). In this situation, “in society, there are mass desire this lock bypass”.
The fact that the Ukrainian people will find ways to circumvent the lock, I have no doubt in the “Classmates”. “Together we will find a way to stay connected, and 9.5 million Ukrainian users of Odnoklassniki, our partners and advertisers will be able to use the social network as they used to,” the company said.
“VKontakte”, which has 16 million Ukrainian users, also believe that changes in the work will not. “We will continue to provide all services to our users in all countries, and existing capabilities of special services will continue to use our Internet resources”, – said in a statement Mail.ru Group.
Discredited themselves
According to Deputy Minister, such decision of the Ukrainian authorities strongly discreditied leadership in the eyes of the Ukrainians themselves. “If you do lock popular resource, then you discredit the government because it shows that the decision power is not realistic, it costs and quietly discredited. You educate the citizens, legal nihilism and increase their computer literacy,” – said Wolin.
Interviewed by TASS, the experts also agreed that these measures are not successful for themselves as Ukrainian politicians. “The Internet is a space where the exchange of ideas. And remove the millions of its citizens from this space is including to harm themselves, their communications,” – said political analyst Gleb Kuznetsov.
The head of the Russian Association of electronic communications Sergei plugotarenko said the decision of Ukrainian authorities stupid and ugly. The same negative opinion was expressed about moving business-the plane of political issues and pressure on businesses in the Internet.
