Apple Stops Product Sales in Russia Over Ukraine Invasion: No iPhones for Russians

Amid this war between Russia and Ukraine, Apple has taken a very big decision not to sell its products in Russia. Apple has decided to suspend the sale of iPhones, iPads, Mac books, and other Apple products in Russia after its invasion of Ukraine last month. 

Before stopping the sale of products, Apple restricted Apple Play and Apple Pay all over Russia along with that it also booted Russian app Sputnik and RT news from the app store. Also, Apple app stores in Russia have also stopped the live traffic patterns and incidents in Ukraine, thus disabling them to track movements going in Ukraine. By opting for all these methods Apple is showing its biggest support to Ukrain during this crisis.

Apple in its statement said, 

“We are deeply concerned about the Russian invasion of Ukraine and stand with all of the people who are suffering as a result of the violence,” Apple also added, “We are supporting humanitarian efforts, providing aid for the unfolding refugee crisis, and doing all we can to support our teams in the region.”

The company also added, 

“RT News and Sputnik News are no longer available for download from the App Store outside Russia.”

This decision was taken by Apple after Russian vice prime minister Mykhailo Fedorov published an open letter to Apple, in which he asked Apple to cut all the global operations from Russia. In his letter, he demanded, to stop supplying Apple services and products to the Russian Federation. Along with that he also asked Russia to stop all the access to the App Store.

Although Apple did not have any physical stores in Russia but deals via online stores hence, restricting that will not allow people from Russia to buy any Apple products. Apart from this, talking about physical sales or the stock available in stores Apple has halted that too by stopping the export of products to Russia. According to Apple, they are doing all these things in order to show support to Ukraine.

Reacting to Apple’s decision Mykhailo Fedorov said, 

“No more Apple product sales in Russia! Now @tim_cook let’s finish the job and block App Store access in Russia. They kill our children, now kill their access!”

However, according to the Ukrainian vice prime minister, these measures will motivate the population of Russia, especially youth to proactively oppose this military operation going on in Russia.

Besides Apple, there are a few more companies, including Meta (Facebook), Google, and Netflix have also imposed a few restrictions on their services provided to Russia. In line with this, Microsoft has also come forward and removed all the Russian apps from the Global Microsoft app store. Talking about further restrictions, Google has also restricted many YouTube channels of RT and Sputnik in Europe. 

Along with this, they have also disabled all the edits in the Google Maps representing any results of the conflict zone. These measures are taken to support Ukraine and the sufferings that people are undergoing due to the Russian invasion.