Cisco has announced plans to withdraw from Russia and Belarus

Cisco has officially announced plans to withdraw from Russia, shutting down its business activities in Russia and Belarus earlier this year in response to the Ukraine attack.

The networking company first issued a statement on March 3, announcing that it would close all business activities in Russia and Belarus “for the near future”. The agency issued another statement on Thursday, noting that it had continued to “closely monitor” the war in Ukraine and, as a result, “decided to start shutting down our business in Russia and Belarus.”

“Cisco is committed to using all its resources to help our employees, organizations and the people of Ukraine and our customers and partners in this challenging time,” the statement said.

In an earnings call in April, Cisco CFO Scott Herren told analysts that historically, Russia, Belarus and Ukraine combined represented about 1% of the company’s total revenue.

However, he noted that the decision to close business activities in both Russia and Belarus had a negative impact on revenue, costing the company “about $ 200 million or two percentage points of growth points”.

What are other companies doing?

In the days following Russia’s initial invasion, a long list of Western technology companies began to suspend operations in Russia.

SAP and Oracle Hall are the first technology companies to publicly leave the country after Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Mikhail Fedorov posted a public letter on Twitter asking them to apply to both companies.

In early March, Microsoft also announced that it would suspend new sales of Microsoft products in Russia, “in compliance with government sanctions.”

But at that time, The statement was criticized By Ukraine’s Vice Prime Minister Mikhail Fedorov, who said that suspending sales in Russia alone was not enough and that the company should block access to its products.

This week, Russian news agency Tas Attempts to install Windows 10 and Windows 11 in Russia have been reportedly blocked. Microsoft has not yet commented on whether this is a technical glitch or part of the company’s plans to withdraw further from Russia.