The real threat came from the fine the government intended to impose on the companies. They threatened to fine not the fixed amount, as they did before, but to calculate it from the turnover values. Which could result in millions of dollars. The Russian government recently fined Booking with almost 18 million USD. For Google and Apple the fine could be even bigger.

The threat to employees on the other hand was not real one, there is no one to legally procecute in the Russian subsidiaries of the companies.