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As the ongoing crisis in Ukraine continues, companies around the world are changing their stance on serving the Russian market. One of those is now Microsoft, who has said that it will stop selling its products and services in Russia, at least temporarily.

In a comment by Microsoft president and vice chair Brad Smith, the company announced its decision, and the reasoning behind it.

Like the rest of the world, we are horrified, angered and saddened by the images and news coming from the war in Ukraine and condemn this unjustified, unprovoked and unlawful invasion by Russia.

We are announcing today that we will suspend all new sales of Microsoft products and services in Russia.

In addition, we are coordinating closely and working in lockstep with the governments of the United States, the European Union and the United Kingdom, and we are stopping many aspects of our business in Russia in compliance with governmental sanctions decisions.

We believe we are most effective in aiding Ukraine when we take concrete steps in coordination with the decisions being made by these governments and we will take additional steps as this situation continues to evolve.

This step comes shortly after Ukraine's deputy prime minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, reached out to Xbox and PlayStation about the gaming companies ceasing operations in Russia.

[source blogs.microsoft.com, via videogameschronicle.com]