The Ukrainian Security and Defense Council imposed [materials] sanctions on a series of Russian tech companies Tuesday, citing security concerns over possible cyber attacks. The council said that the sanctions were imposed to protect against companies “whose activities threaten the information and cyber security of Ukraine”. The sanctions froze any assets [Reuters report] held by the Russian companies still in Ukraine as of Tuesday morning. These new sanctions have increased to 400 the total number of blacklisted Russian firms in Ukraine since 2014. The action will have an effect on Vkontakte [corporate website], which is the Russian version of Facebook, and is widely popular in the country.

Russia has been subject to a variety of economic sanctions from many different nations over recent years. In March the European Court of Justice ruled that sanctions [JURIST report] placed on Russia by the European Union were valid. These sanctions were targeting Russia’s involvement in Ukraine, in an attempt to slow the Russian involvement on the border crisis between the two countries. Also in March Ukraine asked the International Courtof Justice [JURIST report] to bar any Russian action in supporting separatists. In January the US Senate introduced legislation [JURIST report] aimed at implementing sanctions against Russia for its involvement in hacking during the 2016 presidential election.