According to RBC, Russia’s Digital Ministry is requiring the four major mobile operators to disable Apple ID top-ups from mobile phone balances starting on April 1. Sources linked the move to efforts to make VPN payments harder, although TASS said the authorities also want Apple to restore Russian services to the App Store.
Experts Mikhail Klimarev and Leonid Yuldashev told Novaya Gazeta Europe that the step will mainly make it harder to pay for iCloud, Apple Music and other subscriptions. They said VPNs are more often paid for on providers’ own websites than through the App Store. Technically, the ban is simple: the operator stops confirming Apple’s billing requests.
Alternatives mentioned for users include Apple gift cards and foreign bank cards, including virtual ones. Yuldashev also said Android currently offers more freedom than Apple in the Russian internet environment. He described the extra expense as “another tax on the internet.”
According to Forbes, by May 1 the authorities want to introduce charges for using more than 15 GB of international traffic per month on mobile networks. Klimarev said identifying such traffic would be technically difficult and could hurt businesses most. Yuldashev added that setups involving a Russian intermediate server and split tunneling can reduce or bypass such limits.
Another measure under discussion, reported by Kommersant, concerns services on official “whitelists”: if their infrastructure is used to bypass blocks, they could be removed from those lists. The services mentioned include VK, Ozon, Yandex, Sber and major banks.
On the morning of March 31, Digital Minister Maksut Shadaev said the ministry wants to reduce VPN use but does not plan to introduce fines for bypassing blocks.
The experts interviewed by Novaya Gazeta Europe said a full shutdown of VPNs in Russia is unlikely for now; instead, the cost of circumvention, user expenses and pressure on business are likely to grow.