Putin, hinting at sanctions, warns on risks of foreign software

President Vladimir Putin ordered top executives of state companies to speed efforts to shift to domestic software, hinting that future rounds of western sanctions could leave them cut off from the imported programs they rely on.

“Colleagues need to understand that at some point even what they use today will, for well-known reasons—we won’t speak of sad topics here—simply be closed off and that’s it,” Putin told government officials in a televised videoconference Wednesday. 

He endorsed a proposal to make top executives at state companies personally responsible for failing to meet targets to shift to domestic software after Maksut Shadayev, minister of information technology, told him few companies had attained the goals. “If they’re not ready, they will bear the responsibility,” Putin said.

Some Russian state companies and government agencies had their access to foreign programs cut off after being targeted by U.S. and European sanctions in recent years. The Kremlin responded by mandating state firms shift to locally developed programs.

Tensions over Ukraine have led the U.S. and its allies to threaten possible new restrictions on Russia in recent weeks.