Apple on Tuesday announced a temporary halt to sales of all of its products in Russia.

This means that devices such as iPhones, iPads or Macintosh computers are no longer available in the country for the time being.

As the electronics group also announced, it stopped exporting to its Russian sales channels last week.

Apple sells its devices in Russia through its own website and through resellers.

The group does not have its own Apple Stores in the country.

Apple's Russian website was still accessible on Tuesday, but orders were no longer possible.

Roland Lindner

Business correspondent in New York.

  • Follow I follow

In addition to stopping sales of its devices, Apple has also announced that it will only offer services such as the Apple Pay payment platform in Russia to a limited extent.

In addition, the Russian state media RT News and Sputnik News are no longer available outside of Russia in the App Store.

Apple also announced that it would disable certain features, such as traffic information, on its map service in Ukraine.

This was done as a security measure for Ukrainian citizens.

"Proactively Stop Shameful Military Aggression"

"We are deeply concerned by the Russian invasion of Ukraine and stand by all those who are suffering as a result of this violence," the statement said.

Apple is communicating with "relevant governments" about its planned steps.

Apple's ban on sales comes a few days after the Ukrainian government appealed to that effect.

Last Friday, Deputy Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov sent a letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook asking him to stop offering the company's products and services in Russia.

He also asked for a blockade of the country's app store, but now it was not among the announced steps.

He wrote that he was certain these steps would "motivate young people and active population in Russia to proactively stop this shameful military aggression".

Other American technology groups have also reacted to the invasion with restrictions on their offerings.

The social network Facebook and the video service YouTube, which belongs to the Internet group Google, announced, for example, that they would block RT and Sputnik in Europe.

The platforms also announced that they would cut Russian state media from their advertising business.