Valentin Petrov: If domestic enterprises start operating on the domestic software product, Ukraine’s added value will be increased

The sanctions procedure took place in accordance with the law. This was stated by Head of Service on Issues of Information Security of the Staff of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine Valentin Petrov at the roundtable in his comment on Decree of the President of Ukraine on the enactment of the decision of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine "On the imposition of personal special economic and other restrictive measures (sanctions)", the text of which was published today in the official press.

According to him, sanctions cover not the software products but individuals and legal entities as required by the law. "In the case of IT-industry those are developers, distributors of products, support companies related to IT-industry", - Mr. Petrov explained.

The Head of Service on Issues of Information Security of the NSDC Staff noticed that such measures were taken due to threats to national security.

"During the investigation of the attack on the financial sector, which took place in December last year, it turned out that Russian software was installed on the vast majority of infected machines", - Mr. Petrov said adding that this software provides a potential opportunity for unauthorized access to information, an opportunity to inflict damage on completeness, integrity, and availability of information.

Valentin Petrov also added that an important aspect is the fact that "the undeclared war continues for the fourth year, and we cannot afford to finance, especially from the state budget, the aggressor state's software".

"We are at war with Russia and at the same time, are buying their software while they are trying to disguise it under Belarusian or Ukrainian one", - he underscored.

Mr. Petrov also stated that due to the imposition of sanctions "Russian budget is expected to receive billion rubles in taxes less, which could have been spent on financing intelligence, the FSB, the armed forces, and hybrid aggression against our state".

He reminded that this is not the first case of imposing sanctions against Russian software developers. "This list has expanded, and we have the ways to prevent mimicry, renaming, or transfer of rights to other economic entities which want to avoid sanctions", - he said.

Valentin Petrov also added that private entities have the right to choose what software to use, and the state is not going to interfere with it. "But we have the right to protect our personal space, which means that we can displace those companies, the activities of which are deemed to threaten national security", - he explained.

"If our private sector understands that it is better to work with the domestic software product, - this will stimulate our economy, increase our added value - and this will be the result", - he pointed out.