Cisco Systems, Inc., commonly known as Cisco, is an American multinational technology conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California.
Although in early March 2022, CISCO officially announced that it stopped all business operations, including sales and services, in russia and belarus, it keeps working for the aggressor state.
In addition to the delivery of hardware, a significant part of the company’s revenue is equipment maintenance (services), e.g. training of personnel, provided regularly.
Almost 20% of all Russian network infrastructure operates on CISCO solutions. For instance, one of its main customers are russian payment system MIR (introduced following Visa and Mastercard’s termination of operations on the territory of russia) and datacenters belonging to Sberbank of russia.
Therefore, the actual stopping of CISCO’s functioning in the russian Federation would be quite noticeable. However, we do not see that the work of the russian partners of CISCO ceased abruptly.
Moreover, CISCO operates through a huge network of dealers and distributors who actually continue to interact with their vendor. Thus, we consider the termination of operations of the Russian CISCO head office to be insufficient.
A recent announcement on the website of one of the CISCO’s official distributors in Russia reads as follows: “Cisco Russia continues to work and support customers and partners. We are ready to provide the equipment according to your task as well as necessary technical advice. New terms of delivery should be specified by the manager on the phone.”
In a telephone conversation, the manager of the distribution company confirmed the possibility of ordering CISCO equipment and receiving technical support.
It is IMPORTANT to add that service and support for this equipment is impossible without the participation of the CISCO parent company.
CISCO tried already to circumvent the sectoral sanctions imposed on russia (banks and state-owned enterprises) by the E.U. in 2014. Cisco Systems organized the development and production of equipment on the basis of the russian state Experimental Factory of Scientific Engineering with the Special Design Department (EZAN), belonging to the russian Academy of Sciences.
All the equipment was to be produced under a unique local brand, and the rights to the products would be transferred by CISCO to the EZAN after signing a contract.
CISCO managed to produce only a limited batch of equipment for Gazprom, after which the project was terminated at the initiative of the Russian partners.
