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Wedel Software Suspends Operations in Russia

Raoul Wedel: “I hope … more companies consider cutting all their ties with Russia.”

According to a LinkedIn post by Wedel Software CEO Raoul Wedel, the Netherlands-based company is halting its operations in Russia immediately.

“Today’s news out of Tsjernihiv and Borodyanka is heartbreaking and are war crimes. No company, person or organization should financially support a regime deliberately killing innocent civilians,” he wrote.

According to Reuters, 47 people were killed in Russian airstrikes on Tsjernihiv, also transliterated as Chernihiv, on Thursday, Mar. 3. According to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, civilian areas in Borodyanka were hit by Russian airstrikes and artillery shells the same day.

Reached via email, Wedel said that the software company, which develops traffic, billing, sales, and other back-office tools for media companies, has had a portion of its R&D efforts in Russia for the past eight year and before that those efforts were in Ukraine for five years. In his post, Wedel noted that the company has “20 or so” employees in Russia.

“We have employees in Donetsk, Rostov-on-Don, Moscow and St. Petersburg,” stated Wedel. “None of them support this war, and they are just trying to provide for their families.”

Wedel said the company does not expect any short-term problems from pulling out of Russia, but it will need to regroup its R&D efforts in the near future. “Even if the war would end soon, the country will remain unstable and sanctioned as long as Putin is in power,” Wedel said.

“The decision was on one hand heartbreaking; on the other hand, I feel we have no choice, and people must unite against these war crimes,” wrote Wedel. “I hope this story will make more companies consider cutting all their ties with Russia.”

Wedel Software is headquartered in The Hauge, Netherlands, and has offices in New York, San Francisco, Mexico City, and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

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