Jeff Bezos’ company is the latest major US tech company to impose sanctions on Russia and Belarus. Without necessarily being a major player in the country, Amazon decides to suspend deliveries and to block registrations to its cloud service, Amazon Web Services.
No more delivery or cloud in Russia
Over the past few days, many U.S. tech companies have been divesting. Most Silicon Valley companies have cut their ties with Russia. Oracle, Intel, Apple, Google, Airbnb, Microsoft and AMD have decided to suspend their activities on Russian territory. Measures taken in line with the sanctions imposed by the American government. It is now Amazon’s turn to comply with government directives. The e-commerce giant announced on Tuesday March 8 that none of its products will be delivered to the country of Vladimir Putin.
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A decision taken in reaction to the invasion of Ukraine which forced the group to “take additional measures in the region”. In its press release, Jeff Bezos’ company explains that it has “suspended shipping of retail products to customers based in Russia and Belarus”. The Seattle firm has even decided to go further by suspending the accounts of its Amazon Prime streaming service to all Russian subscribers. Amazon adds that “we are no longer taking orders for New World, which is the only game we sell directly in Russia”.
Amazon has never really sought to develop the Russian market
It is important to specify that the activity of Amazon is much less significant in Russia than within the European Union. It does not have a logistics site in Putin’s country, as is the case everywhere in Europe, nor a website, but the company still delivered to Russian customers who placed orders from other websites. In Russia, other major retail players exist. Local competitors like Wildberries or Ozon. Indeed, high import taxes make Amazon products uncompetitive in Russia.
The same goes for Amazon Web Services, the company’s cloud service. The American firm specifies that “We have no data center, infrastructure or office in Russia. Our policy has long been not to work with the Russian government.. Most AWS customers in the territory are actually local subsidiaries of international groups. This decision to halt all of the group’s activities also follows a request from Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, who had asked Amazon to suspend access to AWS services in Russia, for “support a global movement of governments and big business against the invasion of Ukraine”.