The key goal of IT sanctions is to block russia’s access to any software products.
On the FREEDOM broadcast, Ilya Neskhodovskyi, the head of the National Interests Advocacy Network “ANTS” analytical department, emphasized this.
“Weapons are developed, programmed, and pointed, including at civilian targets, using software products. Blocking any software product is possible in most cases – denial of maintenance, limitation of functionality, inability to contact remote servers for support. All of this limits the possibility of developing new weapons,” – Ilya Neskhodovskyi said.
According to the expert, with the start of mobilization, IT specialists will leave the russian federation, for whom international freelance exchanges are now opening, further limiting russia’s IT capabilities.
“These blows are significant from the standpoint of the inability to use the software product, from the standpoint of the people who go abroad, and now they do not participate in the development of software products or have a limited participation in the development of software products,” said the head of the National Interests Advocacy Network “ANTS” analytical department.
According to the expert, there is also a flip side; for example, Microsoft’s campaign allowed Russian users to install updates, despite previous restrictions.
“The question is, how did it happen? Why did they remove these sanctions? Such a rollback demonstrates that the company has no ethical principles and actually supports the war, because they, of course, participate in it by serving their products, which are used, particularly, in the military-industrial sector,” – he emphasized.
Concerning China’s potential IT support, the russian market is too small for the PRC to sacrifice the American and European markets for it.
“The Asian, European, and American markets are critical for Chinese companies; Russian is too small for them to take risks, and the Russian Federation will not want to use Chinese software products because it will make them vulnerable to China,” the expert emphasizes.
Furthermore, different methods of data collection are used by Chinese software products.
“Then russia becomes very vulnerable to China, because China will use the information for its own purposes,” – says Ilya Neskhodovskyi.
According to the expert, Ukraine’s international partners will need to identify and sanction companies that supply software to the aggressor country.
