“Bowing to U.S. sanctions, Apple has decided to end sales of its products in Crimea in move likely to deepen the region’s already record inflation, news agency RIA Novosti reported Thursday,” The St. Petersburg Times reports.
“U.S. sanctions over Russia’s annexation of the Crimean Peninsula in March mean retailers may not ‘sell Apple products or provide services related to Apple products,’ the U.S. technology giant said in an e-mail published on the Twitter page of Eldar Murtazin, editor-in-chief of Russian tech site Mobile-Review,” The St. Petersburg Times reports. “The ban will begin on Feb.1.”
“Murtazin told RIA Novosti that retailers would likely evade the restrictions by buying Apple products from middlemen for resale in Crimea, a move bound to increase the final sale price,” The St. Petersburg Times reports. “High markups are becoming a chronic problem in Crimea, which is beset by Ukrainian and Western sanctions. The region’s economy was integrated with Ukraine before Russia’s land grab. Ukrainian suppliers now charge extra to ship goods over the new border, and the peninsula still has no overland link with Russia. Inflation in the region hit 42.6 percent last year.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Glenn Holland” for the heads up.]
Related article:
Apple sends out termination notices to developers in Crimea following Obama executive order on sanctions – January 18, 2015