Russia designated the Canadian information management corporation OpenText as an “undesirable” organization on Thursday, claiming the company provides services to the United States and Ukraine against Moscow’s interests.
Russia’s Prosecutor General’s Office accused the Ontario-based company of “working closely” with U.S. intelligence agencies in supporting a “Western propaganda campaign against Russia.”
It claimed that OpenText’s British subsidiary, Micro Focus, provides Ukrainian security services with “software and cyber defense capabilities needed in the data collection process to launch attacks on Russian troops and infrastructure.”
Russia’s Foreign Ministry announced sanctions against five Micro Focus executives on the same accusations last year, calling them “accomplices of neo-Nazis.”
OpenText also supplies the Pentagon with “software for access control and identification of computer network users,” the Russian prosecutor’s office said Thursday without providing further details.
OpenText was among the first Western corporations to pull out of Russia after it invaded Ukraine in February 2022. The company employs up to 23,000 people worldwide.
Being designated an “undesirable” organization exposes OpenText’s employees and affiliates to criminal prosecution in Russia and effectively bans it from operating in the country.
Russia has targeted independent media, opposition groups and foreign organizations with the “undesirable” label since introducing the designation in 2015.
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