Yesterday, Apple announced that it has responded to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in a number of ways. Here is Apple’s statement, as released to John Gruber of Daring Fireball:
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. We are supporting humanitarian efforts, providing aid for the unfolding refugee crisis, and doing all we can to support our teams in the region.
We have taken a number of actions in response to the invasion. We have paused all product sales in Russia. Last week, we stopped all exports into our sales channel in the country. Apple Pay and other services have been limited. RT News and Sputnik News are no longer available for download from the App Store outside Russia. And we have disabled both traffic and live incidents in Apple Maps in Ukraine as a safety and precautionary measure for Ukrainian citizens.
We will continue to evaluate the situation and are in communication with relevant governments on the actions we are taking. We join all those around the world who are calling for peace.
As confirmation of the limitation on the use of Apple Pay, I saw yesterday that Moscow-based reporter Jason Corcoran tweeted that Apple Pay no longer works with Moscow’s metro system:
Apple Pay and Google Pay no longer work on Moscow’s metro system, leading to long queues as people fumble about for cash pic.twitter.com/ezaLZneKiJ
— Jason Corcoran (@jason_corcoran) February 28, 2022
Apple operates an online store in Russia, and people in Russia can no longer use it to purchase Apple products. Apple does not operate any physical stores in Russia, but it does work with a number of third-party retailers. The biggest of those is the chain re:Store. Here is a picture that I took of a re:Store location in a mall in Moscow when I was there in 2009:
Considering that Apple has halted all exports into the sales channel in Russia, I expect that the supply of Apple products in re:Store and similar stores will soon become incredibly limited.
Hopefully, Apple’s actions, combined with the actions of countries and companies around the world, will put sufficient pressure on Putin to end the invasion.