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Mariia Shevchuk, Executive Director of IT Ukraine Association, spoke at the international forum “Digitalisation of the New Economy – 2024” held in Zakarpattia. The event brought together experts to discuss digital tools for regional economic development and cooperation between the state and business.
Mariia Shevchuk emphasised that one of the most pressing problems of digitalisation today is hostile software, which needs to be eradicated through legislation and a conscious approach to the choice of software by consumers.
Ukraine imposed sanctions on Russian software developers back in 2017. However, experts report that more than 2,000 Ukrainian state companies have since purchased hostile software worth a total of UAH 860 million, with UAH 460 million spent after the full-scale invasion and UAH 91 million since the start of 2024. The largest purchases have been recorded among energy companies and educational institutions.
Despite the sanctions imposed on Russian company “1C” and its subsidiaries, the number of users of the hostile 1C software product in Ukraine could reach as high as 75%. Over 20,000 Ukrainian companies continue to use the Bitrix24 CRM system, and many Ukrainian businesses, along with some educational institutions, still rely on the Tilda website builder.
In 2023, the IT Ukraine Association launched the Enemy Software project, which aims to withdraw all software products from the aggressor country from circulation and use. To do this, we created an expert group of EBA members and industry experts and joined the work on the draft law ‘On Amendments to the Law of Ukraine “On Sanctions” (Reg. No. 11492), which prohibits the use of hostile software. In addition, the EBA is working as part of the Ermak-McFall group to develop a package of sanctions against Russia that will deny the aggressor access to software products, which is especially important for the oil and gas and banking sectors,
said Mariia Shevchuk at the forum.
As a result of the Association’s work with the Yermak-McFaul group, leading companies and services announced their exit from the Russian market or introduced new restrictions for Russia starting on September 12. Specifically, Microsoft has begun disconnecting Russian users from its cloud services, CAD systems from Autodesk have exited Russia, SAP and Oracle have left Russia’s ERP market, Atlassian (Jira, Trello, and Confluence) has announced a full exit from the Russian market, and Google has blocked new account registrations using Russian phone numbers and deprived Russian bloggers of the ability to earn income through AdSense. The new sanctions will also ban American companies from providing IT consulting, design, support and cloud services to any legal entities in Russia.
