OREANDA-NEWS The Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation opposed the ban on Russian IT specialists leaving the country. The agency stated that any legal restrictions on the movement will lead to staff outflow and will badly affect the industry as a whole. Plans to introduce such bans were also denied by the Kremlin. They stressed that it would violate the constitutional rights of citizens.

The presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov called a piece of news about preparation of restrictions on departure of IT-specialists abroad. In a conversation with RIA Novosti, he stressed that such bills "do not and cannot exist.

The only reasonable way to keep staff in the IT-industry is to create comfortable conditions for its development in the country, the Ministry of Finance agrees.

"Our specialists are really highly valued in the global IT market. We must provide them with decent, competitive working conditions, but not to hinder their movement or employment in foreign companies," - the ministry said.

They added that they regularly communicate with IT-specialists to understand what measures to support IT-specialists are needed.

Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of Russia, Dmitry Medvedev, said he understands the motives of the programmers, who had left the country. According to him, they were largely forced to change their place of residence because Russia was disconnected from payment systems and stopped contacts with major foreign contractors after the start of the military operation in Ukraine. The politician stressed that such specialists are in short supply on the market and expressed hope that the state would find ways to keep them.

Natalya Kasperskaya, the head of InfoWatch, spoke earlier about "herds" of IT specialists who left Russia. In her opinion, it is connected not with material aspect, but with "thin mental organization" of these people. The Russian Association of Electronic Communications estimated that 50,000-70,000 representatives of the IT industry left the country last month. The second wave of emigration is on its way, experts believe. By their estimates, an outflow of 70,000 to 100,000 specialists is expected in April.

The State Duma drew attention to the outflow of creative professionals from Russia, including IT specialists. Anton Gorelkin, the deputy chairman of the Duma's Information Policy Committee, said that many of them simply changed their place of residence, but did not resign. Therefore, so far their relocation has benefited only the market of rental housing in the neighboring countries, the parliamentarian concluded.