Russia’s Digital Communications Ministry reassured that airlines and banks in the country were not affected by the widespread Microsoft outage that disrupted global flights and businesses. Moscow credited its anti-sanction measures for shielding them from the digital chaos.
While international travel, television broadcasters, banks, and healthcare systems in the US, Australia, Europe, and Asia were hit by the outage, Russian airports remained unaffected. Microsoft took action to address the service issues, but the exact cause of the outages was unclear.
Russia’s aviation authority confirmed that domestic airlines were not impacted and emphasized the need for import substitution of foreign software in critical infrastructure. The country has been striving for this since 2014 in response to strained relations with the West.
The Kremlin stated that its systems were functioning normally and unaffected by the outage. Microsoft had previously announced a suspension of new sales and operations in Russia following the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.