What will happen next?

I assume that from 2023/24 the “sales in the states, development in the CIS” schemes will remain only in companies without venture capital expectations, with Eastern European founders.

Let me say it again: if a person from Russia (and in many cases – Ukraine, Belarus and other CIS countries) works for a typical US venture capital startup, he will probably not work there very soon (without moving). The measure of this “very soon” depends primarily on the employee’s replaceability.

3) About the ruble

The idea that I hold – “it all depends on the balance of trade adjusted for inflation” – is becoming more and more relevant. The dependence is so great that even the Central Bank with its manipulations of the key rate does not have much effect.

In March, they laughed at me when they said that a dollar at 100 is completely absurd. My May fast everything is relevant (although on trifles I can do some work on the bugs).

The only thing that can now have a relatively sharp effect on the depreciation of the ruble (to reasonable, not absurd values) is the return of part of the import. And this can happen only in one case: if the conditional Kazakh supplier is not afraid of secondary sanctions for re-export. Considering the trend (no one is particularly bashed with secondary sanctions), fear may partially pass in the fall-winter.

4) American companies were banned from providing accounting, trust and consulting services to Russian residents

Simply put, the life of founders in Russia has become more complicated. Smart people have already written about this, for example, a review about reg.agents here – (Vladimir Klimontovich, also YC alumni) and good explanation Leonard Griver (startup lawyer).

In general, based on the totality of many sources and opinions, we can draw two unambiguous conclusions:

a) Despite the fact that the media has calmed down, people have gotten used to it, there is still a clear trend towards aggravation, deterioration of the situation. New restrictions for residents of Russia appear and will appear. The bureaucracy is slow. And almost does not work in the opposite direction (almost no restrictions will be lifted in the coming years).

b) If the founders, at least in theory, hope to sell/hire/raise outside of Russia, it’s ok to do it without leaving, it’s almost impossible.