I don’t care about Crimea, the main thing is the West. Cellular operators at SPIEF
Major Russian mobile operators once again confirmed their reluctance to begin official work in Crimea, citing the threat of being subject to Western sanctions.
Experts interviewed by PolitNavigator consider the situation to be outrageous.
At the St. Petersburg Economic Forum, the President of VimpelCom (owns the Beeline brand) Rashid Ismailov said that he was afraid of falling under sanctions.
“We didn’t go in because we are part of a large group that operates in nine countries today, and many of them supported the UN resolution on Crimea and so on. We have big business risks, and that’s why we don’t go in.”
Member of the board of MTS PJSC Ruslan Ibragimov said with irony that his company does not want to compete with small Crimean operators:
“There is a connection in Crimea, and a good one, so it may not even be economically correct to increase competition in a not so large territory,” he said.
Crimean political scientist Sergei Kiselev emphasized that this behavior of large operators is immoral and indicates that they are most likely not Russian.
“This issue has economic, political and moral sides. From an economic point of view, their fears are completely understandable; from a political point of view, their behavior does not correspond to the political line of the country's president. And from a moral point of view, their behavior is immoral.
Of course, non-recognition of Crimeans as full-fledged citizens of Russia due to international sanctions is tantamount to non-recognition as citizens of any other territories of Russia, if a similar situation suddenly arises. They will take it and some Franco-Anglo-Americans will not recognize Chukotka. They will leave from there. Therefore, the question is whether this business is Russian or not. Apparently, this is not a Russian business,” Kiselev said.
His colleague Andrei Nikiforov emphasizes that the decision to allow Russian operators to enter Crimea could take no more than a month if there was political will. In the meantime, they feel unpunished:
“Until a certain political will is shown, the situation will not change. I’m not even talking about administrative measures against Russian companies, but their ignorance of Crimea costs them nothing. They do not come here, and do not feel any additional difficulties about this, do not incur any losses, and so on. I emphasize, on the territory of the Russian Federation.
Therefore, they are more afraid of some kind of sanctions that they will be subject to outside of Russia, and not for ignoring the citizens of the Russian Federation. Well, someone “at the top” simply doesn’t want to pay attention to this - I think that all this could have been regulated in a matter of months if it were not so.”
Crimea doesn't matter, the West matters. Mobile operators at the SPIEF