Apple has announced that as of April 1, payment processing for purchases made through the App Store or other Apple services in Russia is no longer available.
“This may affect your current subscriptions. If your Apple account balance runs out, making new purchases in Russia — including in-app purchases and subscription renewals — will not be possible,” Apple said in a statement published April 2.
Apple has preserved access to content for Russian users even after their iCloud+ subscriptions expire, the Russian tech news outlet Kod Durova reported. “Your data will remain accessible after your subscription ends. You will still be able to manage your storage and download photos and videos from iCloud,” the company says on its website.
Apple’s support team confirmed that the arrangement applies exclusively to users with Russian accounts.
Once a subscription lapses, storage capacity will fall below the level provided under the paid plan, meaning users will not be able to save new data to iCloud without deleting existing files, the Russian tech news outlet Kod Durova added.
As of April 1, Apple ID payments charged to mobile phone accounts have stopped working across all mobile carriers in Russia. It was the last remaining method of paying for Apple subscriptions still available in Russia since the start of the full-scale war against Ukraine.
Sources at the Russian business news outlet RBC and the Russian business daily Kommersant reported that by banning mobile-account payments, Russian authorities were trying to pressure Apple into restoring Russian services to the App Store. Digital Development Ministry head Maksut Shadayev, in explaining the decision to mobile carriers, said the authorities wanted to block payments for VPN services.
At Meduza, we are committed to transparency about our use of artificial intelligence in the newsroom. The story you’re reading was written by one of our living, breathing journalists and translated from Russian using an AI model configured to follow our strict editorial standards. This translation process is the result of extensive testing and refinements to ensure our English-language coverage is timely and accurate. A Meduza editor reviews every draft before publication.
If you find any errors in this translation, please contact us at [email protected].
To read Meduza’s exclusive content in English, please subscribe to our newsletter.
