Apple Stops Sales in Russia 🇷🇺

​The company joins the chorus of tech giants pushing back against Russian aggression

On Tuesday, Apple said it was pausing all product sales and limiting the functionality of some of its services in Russia in response to Russian president Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. iPhones and other Apple products are currently not being sold through Apple Stores in Russia, and Apple Pay and other services have been limited.

The company has also removed Russian news apps—including the app for the Kremlin-backed news services Russia Today and Sputnik—from its App Stores in countries outside of Russia and said it has disabled traffic patterns and live incident reports in Apple Maps in Ukraine in order to deter the tracking of Ukrainians’ movements.

Apple is the latest tech company to take a clear stand against the invasion of Ukraine—which thus far has led to more than 130 civilian deaths and hundreds more injured—by cutting off or severely limiting access to its products. While Apple has zeroed in on bans within Russia, other tech companies have removed support for Russian services in European countries. Microsoft has removed Russian news appsfrom its global Microsoft app store, plans to deprioritize search results for the same news outlets on Bing, and will ban Russian state-sponsored ads. Google has blocked the YouTube channels for RT and Sputnikin Europe, is blocking edits to Google Mapsin the conflict zone, and is delisting Russian state-funded publishers in Google News. And Facebook parent company Meta said it would restrict access to RT and Sputnik in Europe.