Apple stops selling products in Russia due to invasion of Ukraine

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine affects everyone. The sanctions imposed by the European Union and other countries are now supported by Apple. Read in this article which measures Apple has implemented.

Officially no longer for sale iPhone in Russia

In an official statement, Apple has taken measures against Russia in response to the war in Ukraine. Apple products are no longer exported to Russia and the online Russian Apple Store is unusable. New stocks for the Russian Apple audience are therefore no longer replenished.

On the Russian Apple Store website, all products, such as the Apple Watch, iPhones, iPads and MacBooks are “discontinued”. The site is therefore still online in that country, but no longer functional.

In addition, Apple Pay has been off the air at all major Russian banks for a while. Many Russians used Apple’s payment service. MasterCard and Visa previously indicated that payments via their cards are no longer possible in the country. This is a harsh sanction from the west and from Apple. It will further upset Russia’s economy.

Other measures taken by Apple against Russia

In addition to stopping the sale of products in Russia, Apple has also implemented a number of other measures. RT News (Russia Today News) and Sputnik , two major news apps from Russia, are no longer available for download outside of Russia. Apple does this to counter pro-Russian messages. Earlier, Facebook, YouTube and Google already took measures of the same caliber against these news sites.

Also, Apple Maps has disabled all live traffic information in Ukraine. With this measure, the Russian army sees where many people are in one place.

Apple responds to question from Ukrainian deputy prime minister

The sanctions of the countries against Russia are almost all economic in nature. Manufacturers were already banned from supplying important products to the former Soviet country. Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, who is also the head of Digital Security, asked earlier this week in a open letter to Apple to take measures.

According to Fedorov, these Apple sanctions would motivate the young generation from Russia to proactively oppose their own government.

Apple’s support for Ukraine

Although the deputy prime minister of Ukraine also asked Apple to take iCloud services and the App Store in Russia, among other things, offline, the American tech company has not answered this call. CEO Tim Cook has expressed his support in a tweet. He is very concerned about the situation in Ukraine. Apple will do everything it can to help. He wants to support Ukrainian employees of the company and local humanitarian efforts.

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