NEW YORK, December 12. /TASS/. Google plans to increase its business investment in Russia in 2015 despite the fact that the Mountain View, California-based company is transferring its engineering operations out of the country, Bloomberg quoted a source who declined to be identified as saying.

“Google has made similar internal changes in other countries, including Sweden, Finland and Norway, the person said,” the news agency reported.

Google said in a statement: “We are deeply committed to our Russian users and customers. We have a dedicated team in Russia working to support them.”

According to Bloomberg, “the pullback follows the souring of relations between Russia and the U.S. and Europe. Russia, which is pushing for more self-sufficiency in industries ranging from software to food production, has rolled out new rules requiring global technology companies to store more data locally.”

Google is a US corporation that owns the world’s most popular eponymous search engine. The corporation also owns the YouTube video hosting service, the mail service Gmail and the Google+ social network. It is the developer of the Android operating system for mobile devices. The company’s capitalization on NASDAQ totals $360.43 billion.

Relations between Russia and the West have soured due to a difference in approaches to the Ukrainian crisis.

The positions of Russia and Western nations on the Ukrainian developments differ radically. Russia has repeatedly denied any involvement in the intra-Ukrainian crisis, but the West accuses Moscow of participation in clashes in Ukraine’s war-torn southeast and has subjected Russia to sanctions.

Russian officials and companies came under the first batch of Western sanctions, including visa bans and asset freezes, after Russia incorporated Crimea in mid-March after a coup rocked Ukraine in February.

The West announced new, sectoral, restrictions against Russia in late July, in particular, for what the West claimed was Moscow’s alleged involvement in protests in Ukraine’s southeast.

In response, Russia imposed on August 6 a one-year ban on imports of beef, pork, poultry, fish, cheeses, fruit, vegetables and dairy products from Australia, Canada, the EU, the United States and Norway.

Russia has constantly dismissed Western allegations that it could in any way be involved in hostilities in the southeast of Ukraine.