Speaking at an economic forum in St. Petersburg today, Mohammad Gawdat, VP of business Innovation at Google X, told a crowd that 25 percent of Google's engineers are Russian. “They’re our best,” he said. “People from Russia are awesome and they’re enormously talented.”

According to Deputy Prime Minister Olga Golodets, Russian tech companies are suffering because profits flow overseas, leaving domestic firms underfunded and unable to retain highly skilled staff.

“The problems we face with investment in the economy are tied to capital outflows, and not to the profit levels we’re seeing today. The financial resources are available, and they’ve been available for years already. We were able to create the Stabilization Fund and the National Wealth Fund. The issue is that the money being created as profits isn’t being capitalized in investments [inside Russia],” Golodets explained.

At the same conference, Vladimir Putin gave a speech downplaying the severity of Russia’s recession, saying the economy is sufficiently insulated against serious shocks. Putin also appealed to foreign investors, stressing Russia’s readiness to cooperate with foreign businesses.