MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday threatened to \u201cthrottle\u201d Western firms remaining in Russia and acting against its interests, as part of Moscow\u2019s effort to beef up domestic software development.
\n\u201cWe need to throttle them. I completely agree, and I say this without hesitation,\u201d he said in response to a businessman\u2019s call to curb the activities of US tech companies Zoom and Microsoft, which currently provide only limited services in Russia.
\nMany Western firms left Russia or significantly wound down their activities in the country after Moscow launched its military offensive on Ukraine, prompting a barrage of economic sanctions from Ukraine\u2019s allies.
\n\u201cWe haven\u2019t kicked anyone out…we have provided the most favorable conditions for them to work in our market, and they are trying to throttle us,\u201d the Russian president said at a meeting with entrepreneurs, without providing details on how the Western companies were damaging Russia.
\n\u201cWe must respond in kind, mirror their actions,\u201d added the Russian president, who has significantly tightened exit conditions for companies seeking to leave Russia, forcing many to sell their assets at steep discounts.
\nThere has been growing media speculation that some companies might consider a comeback amid US President Donald Trump\u2019s efforts to reset relations with Russia and achieve a fast peace in Ukraine.
\nKirill Dmitriev, head of Russia\u2019s sovereign wealth fund and Putin\u2019s special envoy on economic cooperation, said in April that his fund received a lot of requests from US firms wishing to come back. So far, no major Western company has publicly announced plans to return to Russia.
\nSome businesses secured buyback options after selling their assets to the local management, leaving the door open for a potential return to the country.
\nThe companies that have left Russia completely, like US fast food chain McDonald\u2019s, won\u2019t receive a warm welcome if they decide to come back, Putin said.
\n\u201cThey (McDonald\u2019s) have put everyone in a difficult position, left, and now, if they want to come back, are we supposed to roll out the red carpet for them? No, of course not,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday threatened to \u201cthrottle\u201d Western firms remaining in Russia and acting against its interests, as part of Moscow\u2019s effort to beef up domestic software development. \u201cWe need to throttle them. I completely agree, and I say this without hesitation,\u201d he said in response to a businessman\u2019s call to curb …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":62828,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-81600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81600"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81600\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81622,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81600\/revisions\/81622"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}