Apple Pay stops working in Russia due to conflict with Ukraine

Despite threats from the European Union and the United States, Russia ignored it and decided to invade Ukraine. After the invasion, the American and European governments imposed a series of economic sanctions on the country which includes restrictions on Russian banks’ transactions outside the country.

The result of this restriction means that Apple Pay and Google Pay, have ceased to operate in the country

. As reported by the Central Bank of Russia, five major Russian banks have had their international operations restricted due to sanctions from other countries, preventing their customers from using their cards abroad.

They can’t do either money transfer to businesses in the European Union and the United States.

The banks concerned are: VTB Group, Sovcombank, Novikombank, Promsvyazbank and Otkritie. The Central Bank of Russia specifies that the cards issued by these five banks do not work with Apple Pay or Google Pay, since the two platforms are based in the United States.

Russian users can continue to use cards issued by these banks in Russia without any problemsbut not through the Cupertino-based company’s or Google’s digital wallets.

A few days ago, the Vice President of Ukraine sent a public letter via Twitter to Apple asking that the company will remove both the App Store and the Mac App Storewhose decision has not yet been pronounced.

This move would harm users (who couldn’t install any apps as we all know). But, according to the Ukrainian vice-president, this would users will rise up against the government demanding that he abandon the invasion of Ukraine, which is highly unlikely.