Russians working on President Putin's 2024 re-election campaign have been told that they cannot use an iPhone over espionage fears.
Workers have been told that they have until April 1, 2023, to get rid of their iPhones, with one official quoted as saying that "the iPhone is over." They added that workers should "either throw it away or give it to children."
Officials working in the presidential administration's domestic policy, public projects, State Council, and IT departments are among those affected. Instead, they must switch to using Android-based phones.
The final word
Kommersant and The Moscow Times report that Sergei Kiriyenko, the Kremlin’s first deputy chief of staff, issued the "final word" on the iPhone.
Interestingly, it's thought that the Kremlin believes that iPhones are more at risk from hackers and espionage than other smartphones.
Citing an unnamed source, Kommersant says that officials have been told to replace even Apple's best iPhones with Android devices or something made by a Chinese or Russian company. Interestingly, this comes at a time when countries around the world are banning China-owned TikTok from their government networks and devices over similar concerns.
"The reported iPhone ban comes as the Russian government seeks to wean the country off Western technology with a so-called 'sovereign mobile ecosystem' based on the Russian operating system Avrora," The Moscow Times notes.
Beyond this ban, Kremlin workers also aren't allowed to use smartphones for any official purpose.
“Whatever they are, there is no difference. Any smartphone is quite a transparent mechanism, no matter what operating system, Android or iOS. Naturally, they are not used for official purposes,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov reportedly said.
Apple is one of many companies that pulled out of Russia following the country's invasion of Ukraine, even going so far as to remove Apple Pay support in the country as a result of U.S. sanctions.
