Stopped at the beginning of the week by Mykhailo Fedorov, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Digital Transformation in Ukraine, who had asked Sony and Microsoft to block all Russian accounts to show the absurdity of the war led by Vladimir Putin. Ukraine, Microsoft finally comes to react. In an official communiqué, the American giant is horrified and angry at this conflict of unprecedented violence and decided immediately to suspend the sale of its products and other services in Russia. We do not know what Microsoft means new sales, but it is quite obvious that this should include the surface shelves, the Xbox Series X | S consoles, the Windows operating system, not to mention the Cloud Azure solution. Will it be prejudicial to the Russian economy, still is it that the gesture is strong, knowing that other actors also manifest themselves on their side. Apple for example, which also suspends sales of its products, while Gran Turismo 7 was no longer available for purchase on the PlayStation Store Russian.
We announce today that we suspend all new sales of Microsoft products and services in Russia. In addition, we work together and closely with the governments of the United States, the European Union and the United Kingdom, and we stop many aspects of our activities in Russia in accordance with government penalties decisions.
We believe that we are more effective in helping Ukraine when we take concrete action, in coordination with the decisions made by these governments and we will take additional measures as this situation continues to evolve. Our most powerful field of work is undoubtedly the protection of Ukraine’s cybersecurity.
We continue to work proactively to help Cybersecurity leaders in Ukraine to defend against Russian attacks, including more recently a cyber attack on a large Ukrainian diffuser.