Ukraine’s Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Digital Transformation, Mykhailo Fedorov, has called on Sony and Microsoft to cut off Russia from their online services immediately as a response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The sanctions would add to the already long list of economic and quality of life hits the average Russian has seen since the beginning of Russia’s aggression toward Ukraine.

There has already been a slew of high-level decrees passed limiting things like travel for Russian commercial vehicles, financial sanctions placed on wealthy oligarchs and businessmen, as well as sanctions against Russian state financial bodies that prevent UK entities from doing business with them. This latest proposal would arguably not increase the pressure on Putin and his allies directly, but would certainly add to any public dissatisfaction with the current situation.

There are estimated to be around 40 million gamers in Russia, out of a population of around 140 million. Many of those would fall into the 25-35 age range. With public fears around conscription in Russia being reported outside of the country, this would put more pressure on the government in theory, but could equally lead to a hardening of resolve for those already pro-invasion as they see western companies ‘punish’ them for being Russian.

Blast Ban Russian teams

So far many of the sanctions put in place have been aimed at crippling the Russian economy and infrastructure, with moves designed to prevent financial dealings or upgrading the power network. More moves aimed at the Russian populus could see internal pressure on Putin increased, although reports that Pornhub had closed off their services to Russian customers were debunked by fact-checkers Full Fact and Snopes this week.

In esports, we’ve also seen a number of groups take action against Russian-based orgs, with Blast Pro Series announcing that Russian-based teams would not be invited to their events and that they would cancel their CIS qualifier too. It will be interesting to see if further sanctions follow in that regard, with UEFA and FIFA already banning Russian and all club sides from international competition and esports now having a precedent with the Blast decision.