Apple has announced a series of restrictive measures for its Russian customers.
Apple has been noted for its silence since the start of Vladimir Putin’s Russian invasion of Ukraine. And yet, it is not because the communication was not very demonstrative that the American giant did nothing: to the American media CNBC, a spokesperson for the Cupertino company announced that all exports of products to the Russia had been arrested. On the hardware side, the company told Bloomberg that it had also stopped all sales on Russian territory. The online Apple Store in the country indicates that all products are “not available”.
These commitments on the hardware side, which look like punitive actions, have been supplemented by decisions on the services and applications side. According to Apple, all of the brand’s services, including Apple Pay, have been restricted in the country — without the term “restricted” being defined. Like Google with Google Maps, Apple has also stopped all live traffic information on its Apple Maps app in Ukraine, so as not to give out information about the location of civilians, military and resistance fighters in Russia.
Finally, Apple announced that it has removed Kremlin propaganda media Russia Today (RT) and Sputnik News from the App Store in all countries except Russia. On March 1, 2022 at 10:00 p.m., we noted that the RT application was still available on the French App Store.
A necessary commitment
Like other international companies, Apple condemned in its own way the Russian offensive on Ukrainian territory. The stoppage of services and sales has only one goal: to deprive the Russian population of a consumer good, in order to question them about the actions of their government. This is probably not what will make the Kremlin tremble, but little by little, action after action, Russia is cut off from the world and the pressure is increasing on the government of Vladimir Putin.
On the side of the applications of the organs of propaganda, Apple applies a decision of the European Union and adapts it to all the territories on which the App Store is available. Before Apple, YouTube and Facebook (Meta) banned these posts from their platforms.
We have contacted Apple for a statement and will update this article as appropriate.