[Full disclosure: InteliScope LLC is owned and operated by my husband and located near our home in Northern Idaho.]

After weighing its options for several days following the breach of Ukraine’s borders by an emboldened Vladimir Putin, InteliScope LLC’s owner, Jason Giddings, in a press release today, has made the difficult but courageous decision to cease commerce with Russia until Vladamir Putin extracts his troops illegally occupying the Crimea region. The company’s motivation for ceasing commercial transactions are threefold:

1. Most importantly, Inteliscope wants to make certain that its product—a mount that attaches to a rifle’s picatinny rail, turning a smartphone into a fully operational scope—does not wind up in the hands of Russian soldiers or anyone else who might use it against Ukrainians, or U.S. troops and allies in the event the crisis escalates into a situation warranting military involvement.
2. Inteliscope hopes to place economic pressure on Russian citizens in the hopes that they will in turn pressure the Russian government to cease its illegal occupation of Ukraine.
3. Inteliscope hopes to encourage other businesses, from sole proprietorships to multinational corporations, to follow its lead and cease commerce with Russia until Vladimir Putin ends his lawless occupation of Ukraine.

While our weak-kneed, clueless leadership, along with a certain former Secretary of State, continues fumbling around, reactively, for an ever-elusive answer to a crisis their impotent foreign policy helped create, leaving a power vacuum that Putin is happily trying to fill, Inteliscope is proactively doing the only thing it can: Taking the Bear by his fiscal paws in an effort to help persuade him to remove himself from Ukraine, while hoping to motivate others to do the same. Please share this post, and InteliScope’s press release below, and encourage businesses that deal with Russia to consider joining the suspension of commercial trade, and help convince Vladimir Putin that it is in the best interest of Russia to remove his jaws from the neck of a sovereign Ukraine.

Please click on image to enlarge.