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The Street
The Street
Riley Gutiérrez McDermid

Apple, Under Pressure, Halts All Russian Sales

Tech giant Apple (AAPL) said late Tuesday that it will halt all sales of its product in Russia as the country's invasion of Ukraine continues.

The American company site shows delivery dates as "currently unavailable" on its Russian site and Apple said it had stopped all exports into Russia.

On Friday, Ukrainian Vice Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov publicly asked Apple to stop selling its products and services in Russia.

"I've contacted @tim_cook, Apple's CEO, to block the Apple Store for citizens of the Russian Federation, and to support the package of US governement sanctions! If you agree to have the president-killer, then you will have to be satisfied with the only available site Russia 24," Fedorov posted on his Twitter account.

He also posted a letter he wrote to Cook.

Justin Sullivan/Getty

Four days later, the company said in a statement that it had also removed Sputnik News and RT News from its App Store because of their connection as state-run media to the Putin administration.

“We have taken a number of actions in response to the invasion. We have paused all product sales in Russia," Apple said in a statement. "Last week, we stopped all exports into our sales channel in the country. 

The company said that Apple Pay and other services have been limited and that it has "disabled both traffic and live incidents in Apple Maps in Ukraine" in order to keep people in the area safe.

The company joins Nike (NKE), Warner Bros. and Disney (DIS) in limiting the business it does in Russia beyond what official sanctions have required. 

Facebook (FB), Google (GOOGL)and Youtube have also already taken anti-Russian measures

You can read more about those sanction and what Russians are listed as flagged here.

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