Apparently, Google and Facebook are on the list of U.S. companies that the Russians have asked to open up local offices within the country – but in the current context, that’s not likely to happen.
Paresh Dave at Reuters reports on how some companies like Apple and Spotify have already complied with the Russian requests that if a company is doing business in Russia, it should have offices there.
“Russian legislation signed by President Vladimir Putin has obliged foreign social media companies with more than 500,000 daily users to open local offices since July 2021 or be subject to restrictions as severe as outright bans,” Dave writes.
As for those who haven’t yet made a deadline set by recent legislation, there is every indication that instead of getting more involved on Russian soil, these businesses will run the other way.
Package delivery services have been suspended in Russia in the Ukraine. Shipping problems create supply chain logistics concerns.
In short, the Russian invasion of Ukraine is bad for business. It has also spurred crackdowns within the country, and retaliation by counterparties.
“Russia, which calls its actions in Ukraine a ‘special operation,’ has curtailed access to Facebook in recent days in retaliation for censoring state media services, which critics say promote fake news and propaganda,” Dave writes. “Twitter has also been slow to access on mobile devices. Demand for virtual private networking (VPN) apps, which can help with circumventing internet restrictions, has surged in Russia amid the latest crackdown. Three of the top five most downloaded apps on Apple’s App Store on Monday were VPNs, and they generated a combined 383,000 installs over the past seven days, 15 times more than the prior seven-day period, according to estimates from tracker Sensor Tower.”
In fact, along with several trenches of sanctions, critics of the Russian aggression are hoping that some of this additional soft economic penalty will have an effect on a Russian leader that some say is losing his grip on reality.
“Vladimir Putin turns out to be stark staring mad,” says newspaper columnist Peter Hitchens, as quoted in coverage at Express. “Aggressive war is a crime. Nothing excuses it.”
Oddly enough, some markets are still doing well despite the Ukraine concern.
Be sure to follow this throughout the rest of the week.
