Minister can not decide on production, but can influece on the matter. Here he has already created market to Sailfish Os in Russia, by choosing OS to civil servants. It is possible that it there will be legislative restrictions to Android OS in order to limit foreign spying on russians. That would be in line with Russia already demanding info collected by creditcard companies to be saved within its borders. It would make room to alternative OS Sailfish in consumermarkets.

I do not think Sailfish Os Russia survives, if it takes years to make consumerphone. Developing OS is expensive and can not continue years for mainly govermental phones only. There must be income coming from consumerphones. Nikiforov is smart (favours Sailfish Mobile OS) and surely understands that. Therefor I do expect new phone to us coming from Russia this year.