Bonum Certa Men Certa

From Belarus With Love — Part XIII: Marat Ebzeev Tries to Defuse the Situation



Series parts:

  1. From Belarus With Love — Part I: Schizophrenic EPO Policy
  2. From Belarus With Love — Part II: “Techwashing” an Autocratic Regime?
  3. From Belarus With Love — Part III: Apps From the Dictatorship
  4. From Belarus With Love — Part IV: “Software from Minsk” via Gilching and Rijswijk
  5. From Belarus With Love — Part V: From Start-Up to Success Story...
  6. From Belarus With Love — Part VI: “Big Daddy” Hammers the Opposition...
  7. From Belarus With Love — Part VII: The Post-Election Crackdown
  8. From Belarus With Love — Part VIII: “Seoul in the Centre of Pyongyang”
  9. From Belarus With Love — Part IX: The End of “Peaceful Coexistence”?
  10. From Belarus With Love — Part X: From “High-Tech Hub” to “No-Go Zone”
  11. From Belarus With Love — Part XI: SaM's Management Remains Suspiciously Silent
  12. the last part
  13. YOU ARE HERE ☞ Marat Ebzeev Tries to Defuse the Situation


Marat Ebzeev
The managing director of SaM's delivery center in Minsk, Marat Ebzeev, received a petition signed by around 200 employees. He appeared to support Alexander Deev until objections by employees forced him to backtrack.



Summary: The EPO's partners in Belarus serve to weaken if not altogether refute a recent statement from António Campinos and his hypocritical colleagues who govern the EPO like a bunch of Lukashenkos; today we look at the stance of Marat Ebzeev, one of the company's chiefs, who only after an uproar issued a third communiqué backtracking and almost apologising

In the last part we saw how pro-regime statements posted on Facebook by a senior manager at SaM Solutions sparked off a major internal row at the company's "delivery center" in Minsk in October 2020.



As one anonymous commentator put it:

"Our hero of the day Alexander Deev had f***-all to do at 4 o'clock in the morning, so he decided to throw shit at the fan on his Facebook page."


"Within a single day 200 employees out of a total of around 500 at the company’s “delivery center” had signed the letter which was submitted to the managing director, Marat Ebzeev."SaM employees who took particular exception to Deev's demand for "names" responded by drafting an open letter of response for signature.

Within a single day 200 employees out of a total of around 500 at the company's "delivery center" had signed the letter which was submitted to the managing director, Marat Ebzeev.

The text of the letter read as follows:

“We, the undersigned, consider it our duty to speak out about Alexander Deev's post on the social network Facebook.

The SAM SOLUTIONS team has been building for over 25 years. The main criterion that allowed so many wonderful people to gather in one place was primarily professionalism, not political affiliations, religion, gender, race, nationality, citizenship, food habits, orientation or passion for hockey. Professionalism - that's what always stood in the first place!

Despite the fact that we are definitely not impressed by the publication of provocative and often boorish statements by a public person associated with our company, we believe that Alexander Deev, as a private person, is free to adhere to any views and speak in any tone to his interlocutors on his personal page, but only as long as he does not demand, referring to his colleagues, "lists [of names] on the table."

The requirement of "lists on the table" immediately indicates that Alexander Deev on his personal Facebook page is purporting to act as the Deputy Director for Business Development of the SAM SOLUTIONS company.

We consider such statements as an attempt to divide us, the SAM SOLUTIONS team, into two camps. Such a separation can in no way contribute to business development, solving strategic problems, business planning, identifying new business opportunities and attracting new potential customers.

In this regard, we believe that the Deputy Director for Business Development of our company should continue to avoid, in his rhetoric addressed to the general public, frankly provocative and unprofessional statements aimed at splitting the SAM SOLUTIONS team on any grounds, diminishing the business reputation of the company, and also insulting the feelings of employees."


Ebzeev tried to calm the situation by issuing a communiqué to all staff. However, his first attempt didn't impress the recipients.

As one anonymous source noted:

There is no mention [in Ebzeev's communiqué] about "Deev's lists". Most of the letter is about the negative publicity that poured out on the company from external sources. And that Deev has the right to speak as he pleases, and the company respects this right.

I got the feeling that Marat gives carte blanche to Deev for any statement and ignores the substance of our petition.

Perhaps the managing director wants to protect his employee, but he might also like to take into account the opinion of the other two hundred. For example, I don’t want to work in a company where those at the top are allowed to act like this.


About a half an hour later, Ebzeev issued another communiqué in which he stated that he was asked a lot of questions about “lists on the table”, and he assured staff that there could be no talk of such "lists".

However, an anonymous source pointed out that the real problem was not with Deev's demand for "lists" but rather that one of the company's management team felt entitled to express himself in such terms on a publicly accessible website:

"The issue here is not that I am afraid to get on one of Deev's lists. It is that I do not want such tones to come from someone at the top of the company, and especially not in the public arena."


After the open letter had been published on devby.io, Ebzeev sent a third communiqué to staff in which he expressed his "sincere gratitude" for their "wisdom, honesty and decency".

The story ended with Deev eating humble pie by deleting his controversial Facebook posts and apologising to his colleagues.

Deev subsequently posted a new comment on his Facebook page targeting devby.io which he denounced as a "yellow electronic press" and a "garbage dump". Those comments also disappeared soon afterwards.

Some time later in April 2021, it was reported that Deev had set up his own company called "First Strategic Integrator". According to devby.io, the company's main activity is in the field of computer programming and the sole proprietor is Alexander Deev.

It's not clear what exactly motivated Deev's departure from SaM Solutions but it's likely that the dispute over his Facebook postings in October 2020 was a contributing factor.

However, it's worth pointing out here that after Deev's had "outed" himself as a hardcore supporter of the Lukashenko regime, he didn't suffer any rebuke or sanction from the company's higher management.

"However, it's worth pointing out here that after Deev's had "outed" himself as a hardcore supporter of the Lukashenko regime, he didn't suffer any rebuke or sanction from the company's higher management."On the contrary, the managing director of the Minsk "delivery center", Marat Ebzeev, did his best to protect Deev. The record shows that he tried to excuse Deev’s actions until the persistence of the company’s employees obliged him to backtrack and "persuade" Deev to apologise.

It’s clear that the main concern of SaM's management on that occasion was not about Deev's zealous support for a totalitarian regime and his openly expressed contempt for the victims of its repressive measures.

The problem in the eyes of SaM’s management was the fact that Deev's "provocative" and "boorish" manner of conducting himself in public was generating negative publicity for the company.

That concludes our examination of the internal dispute which flared up at SaM’s Belarus “delivery center” in October 2020.

Readers are free to draw their own conclusions about Deev's “provocative” comments and how the management of SaM dealt with the situation. However, the overall impression which emerges here is that SaM’s management has no qualms about having vociferous cheerleaders for the Belarus regime in the ranks of its senior management.

"...the overall impression which emerges here is that SaM’s management has no qualms about having vociferous cheerleaders for the Belarus regime in the ranks of its senior management."It would appear that the company’s management is perfectly happy to accommodate itself with Lukashenko’s tyrannical regime as long as it is given a free hand to pursue its business interests.

This impression is supported by the fact that SaM did not join the "IT sector exodus" following the 2020 crackdown in Belarus. The company's main "delivery center" remains located in Minsk.

In the final part of the series, we will look at why the EPO's reliance on SaM Solutions as an “outsourcing partner” is a legitimate and ongoing cause for concern.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Slopwatch: Brian Fagioli, Google News, and Other LLM Slopfarms
Why does Google News keep promoting these fake articles?
Links 29/10/2025: Amazon Kept "Data Center Water Use Secret", "Abuse of Power" Against Media
Links for the day
Gemini Links 29/10/2025: "My Hardware Specs" and "Goodbye Debian…"
Links for the day
EPO Cocainegate: Feedback and Clarifications
Part III will come out soon
Links 29/10/2025: "US Military Is Destroying the Planet Beyond Imagination" and Boat Strikes Deemed Unlawful
Links for the day
Quality Comes First (Techrights Search)
It's generally working already, but we wish to polish it some more
Techrights Party Countdown
Late next week we'll be holding a party near our home
European Parliament and Council Directive on Privacy is Vanishing
"edited / censored some time more recently"
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, October 28, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, October 28, 2025
Slopwatch: The March of Slopfarms, From UbuntuPIT to Linux Journal and to Various Fake Sites Still Promoted by Google News
It's so worrying to see what the Web has become
Links 29/10/2025: CISA, Ukraine, and Amazon Problems
Links for the day
[Teaser] The EPO's Spokesperson, a Cocaine User, Fancies Young Women
How's that for "optics" in the EU and Europe's second-largest institution?
How Will António Campinos Respond to the EPO's 'Cocainegate'?
That's the same thing we saw and still see when the press deals with enablers and partners of Jeffrey Epstein
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part IV: There Cannot be Free Software Without Free Press and Free Information
One day, one can hope, more people will recognise that for Software Freedom we need free press and free thinkers
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part III: Principled Stance Is Never Cheap
Protecting the truth and insisting that the general public is made aware of things that really happened isn't cheap
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part II: Because Scarcity of Accurate Information Breeds Collective Ignorance
we too will strive to share information that's aggressively suppressed
Gemini Links 28/10/2025: More New Arrivals at Geminispace, xkcd on "Document Forgery"
Links for the day
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part I: Defence of the Truth
This year we make a very strong, firm statement for truth, even if that means explaining our work to the top media judge in the country
Links 28/10/2025: Meta and Fentanylware (CheeTok) Age-Restricted Down Under, "Britain Needs China’s Money"
Links for the day
Links 28/10/2025: Mass Layoffs at Amazon and Charter to Cut 1,200 Jobs
Links for the day
The Cocaine Patent Office - Part II: The Person Who Planted Paid-for Fake News for the European Patent Office (EPO) is a Cocaine User, Friend of António Campinos, Now on Record as Having Been Arrested
Background: High-level manager at the European Patent Office caught in public with cocaine, arrested
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, October 27, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, October 27, 2025
Google News Drowning in Slop (and Slopfarms That Hijack About Half the Results)
Google News seems to be drowning in this stuff
Gemini Links 28/10/2025: "How to Maximize Your Positive Impact" and ASCII Art and Artist Attribution
Links for the day
PETA and Activism
Being staff or volunteer in PETA isn't easy
Big Blue, Huge Debt
debt will soar again
Links 27/10/2025: Mass Surveillance Sold as "AI", People Reluctant to Lose Physical Media
Links for the day
Parties and Milestones Again
we've begun putting up about 40 balloons
Techrights' 19th Anniversary: Bronze
Time to go back to preparing for this anniversary
Our Latest European Patent Office (EPO) Series Will Last Several Weeks, Will Ask the EPO Management and the European Union (EU) Very Difficult Questions
If nobody loses a job (or jobs) over this, then the EU basically became no better than Colombia or Nicaragua
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, UbuntuPIT, Brian Fagioli, and Google News
We focus on stories that are fake or LLM slop that disguises itself as "news" about Linux
Links 27/10/2025: Wikipedia Vandalism, Bruce Perens Opens up on Childhood
Links for the day
This Site Could Not be Done by LLMs Even If It Wanted to (Because It's Not a Parrot of What Other Sites Say)
LLMs have no knowledge or deep understanding
Microsoft is Disloyal Towards Its Most Loyal Employees
Against its most faithful enablers
19 Years, No Censorship
No factual information is ever going to be removed, more so if it is in the public interest
We Are Not a Conventional Site, That's Why They Hate (or Love) Us
Throughout the week this week we'll be focusing on the EPO
Following the Line of Cocaine All the Way to the Top
Even a million denials and spin-doctoring won't distract from the core issue
The Cocaine Patent Office - Part I: António Campinos Brought Corruption and Nepotism to the EPO, Then Came the Cocaine
High-level manager at the European Patent Office (EPO) caught in public with cocaine, the Office has some answering to do
Purchasing/Possessing Computers Isn't the Same as Controlling Computers
Let's strive to put computers back under the control of their users, no matter who purchased these (usually the users)
Gemini Links 27/10/2025: Alhena 5.4.3 and Fixing Bash
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, October 26, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, October 26, 2025
Thankfully We've Made Copies of More Interesting Data From statCounter
If statCounter (the Web site or the 'webapp') vanished overnight, we'd still have something left of it
More Silent Layoffs at IBM/Red Hat
when the media counts such layoffs or presents tallies the numbers are very incomplete