Roskomnadzor says it isn’t blocking the App Store, but Russia’s outage started the day after its ultimatum to Apple expired

Users in Russia have been reporting problems with the App Store. Availability of the service began declining on July 16 and has not recovered since. Roskomnadzor representatives said they are not blocking the App Store. Journalists, however, suspect Russian authorities imposed the restrictions in response to Apple’s recent removal of VK apps from the App Store. Here’s what’s confirmed so far, and what a full App Store block in Russia could mean for users.

The international research project OONI began detecting a surge in anomalous connections to Apple’s website as early as July 16, with availability on some days falling to 30–40%. By July 20, the site had largely recovered — availability was back above 95%. The App Store began showing problems on July 18 and has not recovered since; availability is currently hovering around 50%.

The monitoring services Downdetector and Sboy.rf — a Russian outage-tracking site — also started logging a jump in App Store complaints around midday on July 20. The graph on Sboy.rf shows complaints climbing every day since the middle of last week.

In the comments on Downdetector and Sboy.rf, users from across Russia say they can reach the App Store only through a VPN. Users in other countries have reported no access problems. The Telegram channel Kod Durova reports that connecting to the App Store from abroad with a VPN set to a Russian region is also impossible.

OONI is also tracking problems with Google Play’s availability in Russia: on July 20, it stood at just over 20%. User complaints about Google Play, however, are almost nonexistent. According to OONI’s data, anomalous connections to Google Play have been frequent for several months.

The full scale of the disruptions remains unclear. A poll in Meduza’s Telegram channel shows that just 3% of readers say the App Store is not working for them, and another 1% report that Google Play is unavailable — a total of just over 900 people out of nearly 24,000 participants.

Roskomnadzor says it is not restricting access to the App Store in Russia. The independent Russian outlet Verstka argues, however, that authorities have imposed a partial block regardless, noting that OONI recorded similar surges in anomalous connections when Telegram and WhatsApp were restricted.

The Russian tech outlet AppleInsider also writes that the nature of the disruptions points to a Roskomnadzor block. An outage on Apple’s end would have hit all users simultaneously and resolved quickly, and it could not have been fixed with a VPN. Russian government restrictions, by contrast, work selectively and unevenly, hitting only some providers — which would explain why many users are seeing no problems at all.

The App Store block may be authorities’ response to the removal of VK apps. Apple had previously ignored a warning from the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS).

The dispute between Russian authorities and Apple has lasted more than a month. In early June, the company removed the Max messenger from the App Store, and shortly afterward pulled all other apps belonging to the Russian tech holding VK, citing sanctions without elaborating.

On July 16, Google followed suit, removing all VK apps from Google Play, apparently in response to sanctions the European Union had imposed several days earlier. EU officials said VK provides “technical support for the suppression of civil society and the democratic opposition” in Russia.

Google’s removal of the apps has so far drawn no response from Russian authorities. Russian regulators, however, handed Apple an ultimatum. The Digital Development Ministry called the removal of VK apps from the App Store “a politically motivated decision” and “an act of unfair competition,” and asked the FAS to investigate.

On July 1, the FAS issued a warning to Apple. Formally, the warning targeted the foreign search engine that comes installed by default on the company’s devices. Max was also mentioned, though in a different context: the FAS said Apple was failing to meet government requirements to preinstall Russian software, including a national messenger and a domestic app store.

Regulators gave Apple two weeks to address the violations, threatening a fine of up to 4 billion rubles. The deadline passed on July 15. Apple did not comply. The next day, users started reporting problems accessing the company’s services.

Restricting the App Store will affect everyone. But the main problem is that circumvention will become even harder.

There are no precise figures on how many people in Russia use iPhones, but several companies and carriers have published estimates.

A study by T-Bank found that as of October 2024, iPhone owners made up 42% of Russian smartphone users. In April 2026, MegaFon put the figure at a more modest 24%, based on an analysis of devices registered on its network.

Either way, the number runs into the tens of millions. An App Store block would hit all of those users, cutting off their ability to download new apps or update existing ones — forcing them to rely on circumvention tools for both.

Even those tools present a problem: many VPNs need frequent updates, precisely because Russian authorities keep devising new methods of restriction. Without those updates, those VPN services gradually stop working under strict blocking.

iOS users, unlike Android device owners, cannot officially install apps outside the App Store. Alternative stores for iPhones exist in EU countries but not in Russia. Russian authorities have demanded that Apple allow such stores there as well, so that Russian apps removed from the App Store could be distributed through them.

It’s worth setting up several reliable VPN services in advance. Meduza has published a simple, detailed guide on how to do this. A full App Store block may not happen, but with tens of millions of iPhones in Russia, it pays to be ready.