As a whole, Russian nationalists were popping champagne corks when Western media and other influence operations left Russia. It was basically everything they wanted. Given to them for free. By their enemies. Everything that cuts a dependency also cuts an influence vector and increases sovereignty.
The world is moving to regional blocks -- a Western block of North America and Europe, a Eurasian block of Russia/India/Iran/Middle-East/China, and the loyalties of Africa/Latin America are where the wars for influence will be fought, with Africa tilting toward Eurasia and Latin America tilting toward the West. Other battle grounds would be marginal areas like Southeast Asia/Pacific Islands and in Europe the balkans. In that context, it makes no sense for the Eurasian block to allow a business to operate domestically from an enemy block. Why on earth would you let them influence your population? For the same reason, Eurasian influence operations are being banned in the West, from Confucian Institutes to Sputnik News.
The main entrypoints to a block will be those nations that have sufficiently rigid control over their domestic populations to feel free with enemy dependencies -- that would be the US and China, both with impressive soft power and sophisticated information control regimes. That is why US made films that are shown in China often have to have different scenes in them - sometimes shot with different endings -- and there are strict limits. China has their own system of deboosting content and their own troll farms. Same for any kind of internet presence and also video games and other media. Likewise, the US has a sophisticated system of banning and other soft "deboosting" of views that run counter to official regime narratives. There is a whole industry to identify counter-narrative views and brand them as "misinformation" that must be rooted out. Russia has a much less sophisticated information space defense system for this, and much less soft power, so for them outright bans and blocks are the only viable option, and this was given to them by the West on a platter. Amazing self-own.
The world is moving to regional blocks -- a Western block of North America and Europe, a Eurasian block of Russia/India/Iran/Middle-East/China, and the loyalties of Africa/Latin America are where the wars for influence will be fought, with Africa tilting toward Eurasia and Latin America tilting toward the West. Other battle grounds would be marginal areas like Southeast Asia/Pacific Islands and in Europe the balkans. In that context, it makes no sense for the Eurasian block to allow a business to operate domestically from an enemy block. Why on earth would you let them influence your population? For the same reason, Eurasian influence operations are being banned in the West, from Confucian Institutes to Sputnik News.
The main entrypoints to a block will be those nations that have sufficiently rigid control over their domestic populations to feel free with enemy dependencies -- that would be the US and China, both with impressive soft power and sophisticated information control regimes. That is why US made films that are shown in China often have to have different scenes in them - sometimes shot with different endings -- and there are strict limits. China has their own system of deboosting content and their own troll farms. Same for any kind of internet presence and also video games and other media. Likewise, the US has a sophisticated system of banning and other soft "deboosting" of views that run counter to official regime narratives. There is a whole industry to identify counter-narrative views and brand them as "misinformation" that must be rooted out. Russia has a much less sophisticated information space defense system for this, and much less soft power, so for them outright bans and blocks are the only viable option, and this was given to them by the West on a platter. Amazing self-own.