Kirill Sinkov: Kazan Digital Week 2026 Became a Hub for Building Strategic Partnerships
Forum participants in Kazan say Russia’s digital solutions market has matured significantly in just one year and entered a new phase of development.
Kirill
Sinkov, Director of Technology Partner Relations at Astra Group, said that this
year’s Kazan Digital Week 2026 (KDW) showed that Russia’s IT market has finally
moved beyond the urgent replacement of foreign-developed products. Just two or
three years ago, the main question was: “What can we use to replace a foreign
solution?” Today, customers are asking a different question: “Will it work with
everything else?” That shift fundamentally changes how Russian software vendors
operate.
“For us, KDW
was more than a venue for presentations. It became a hub for building concrete
partnerships. During the forum, Astra Group held a joint event for customers
with 1C and ICL. We brought clients together to discuss not individual
products, but ready-to-deploy industry solutions that have already been tested
in real-world scenarios. This is the kind of format in which customers see not
three separate vendors, but one integrated system that works,” said Kirill
Sinkov, Director of Technology Partner Relations at Astra Group.
At KDW,
Astra Group signed several strategic agreements, including one with the Voskhod
Research Institute to develop a unified product offering for handling documents
classified as For Official Use Only (FOUO). These partnerships are a response
to the changing demands of Russia’s evolving market.
“Customers
don't need a collection of products. They need a proven combination of
solutions backed by industry leaders who take responsibility for making them
work together. That is why we have initiated the Competence Center for Testing
and Interoperability (CCTI) under the RUSSOFT Association's Committee. We want
compatibility standards to be shaped by the industry as a whole, not by a
single vendor. Kazan Digital Week confirmed that the future belongs not to
closed ecosystems, but to alliances of ecosystems operating under shared rules.
In my view, the developer market has come of age. The companies that recognize
this first will be the ones that benefit most,” Sinkov said, highlighting the
industry's changing priorities.
