Russian officials involved in the 2024 Russian presidential election have been told not to use iPhones due to reported risks of interference from Western intelligence agencies.
The country’s daily political and business newspaper, Kommersant (opens in new tab) officials reported that they have until April 1 to find a replacement device.
The news came from Sergey Kiriyenko, First Assistant Secretary of the President’s Office, who made the announcement at a government-sponsored seminar.
Russian authorities ban iPhone
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov explained that “smartphones should not be used for public affairs,” and that the lack of trust in the country is not specifically focused on Apple, but rather that “any smartphone has considerable There is a transparent mechanism,” he added.
Moscow Times (opens in new tab) reports that the announcement was the “final word” in a discussion that has been going on for weeks.
A source familiar with the decision told Kommersant that the Kremlin may even offer to purchase replacement devices for affected iPhone users to ease the transition from American technology.
The Kremlin has since advised iPhone users to replace them with Android devices, though Android devices may one day be banned as well as the country shifts to Chinese and Russian devices.
Many expect this to portend a major move towards Aurora, a Linux-based mobile OS developed by Open Mobile Platform, a subsidiary of Russian telecommunications giant Rostelecom (although the Finnish OS derived from).
But political scientist Nikolai Mironov cites “purely pragmatic solutions” and “not mass rejection of ‘unfriendly’ brands” as reasons for the decision to ban officials from using iPhones. We believe there is no political incentive behind it.
The country is already trying to ban other Western technologies such as: video conferencing platform Zoom has been officially used in favor of domestically developed alternatives, and while the sanctions may initially have shaken the entire country, the Kremlin has apparently adapted and faced recent overcomes many of the challenges of
