ArticlesDifficulties in Software Import Substitution
In 2022, after the start of the Special Military Operation and the imposition of sanctions by the United States and European countries, foreign companies began to leave the Russian market en masse. In particular, major global software vendors such as Adobe, Avast, Cisco, TeamViewer, Slack, and many others left or restricted their operations, resulting in a sharp increase in the need for import substitution. On March 30, 2022, the President of the Russian Federation issued a decree requiring the transition to domestic IT solutions, and in June 2023, an order was issued for all state-owned companies to fully migrate to domestic software by January 1, 2025. Konstantin Gushchin, co-founder of the Russian email marketing service Unisender, shared his vision of what has been done in Russian software over the past two years and what is still lacking.