Microsoft suspends “all new sales of products and services in Russia”

Microsoft President and Vice Chairman Brad Smith announced today in a blog post that Microsoft will suspend “all new sales of Microsoft products and services in Russia”following the country’s “unjustified, unprovoked and illegal”invasion of Ukraine. The company did not name specific products, but a full ban would include Windows and Office software, Surface and Xbox hardware, Azure cloud computing services, and consumer services such as OneDrive and Xbox Game Pass.

Microsoft is not the first major tech company to officially halt sales in Russia as the country’s invasion of Ukraine continues. Apple suspended sales of its products in Russia earlier this week, and Google suspended advertising in Russia yesterday. Several tech companies, including Microsoft, have also blocked, demonetized or prioritized content from Russian state-owned media such as RT and Sputnik. And some game companies have heeded requests from the Ukrainian government to stop selling their games in Russia while the invasion continues.

Earlier this week, Microsoft wrote a separate blog post detailing its efforts to prevent malware and other cyberattacks against Ukrainian and European targets. Today’s post confirms the company’s attention to these issues.

“Since the beginning of the war, we have acted against the Russian positioning of destructive or subversive measures against more than 20 Ukrainian government, information and financial organizations,” Smith wrote. “We also acted against cyber attacks against several additional civilian targets. We have publicly expressed our concern that these attacks against civilians violate the Geneva Convention.”

The use of “new sales”in Microsoft’s statement appears to mean current customers will not be affected, but Microsoft says it is working with the US, EU and UK governments to comply with the sanctions those governments have placed on Russia since the invasion began.