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

Russia's Apple App Store has been disrupted since July sixteenth, with availability currently hovering around fifty percent. Meduza reports the disruptions began the day after an expired government deadline for Apple to meet regulatory demands—chief among them, reinstating VK apps that Apple removed in June citing sanctions. Roskomnadzor, Russia's telecom regulator, denies blocking the service, but independent researchers monitoring internet restrictions say the technical patterns match previous Russian blocks of Telegram and WhatsApp. The disruption affects tens of millions of iPhone users—estimates suggest between one in four and two in five Russian smartphone users own iPhones. iOS users in Russia cannot officially install apps from alternative stores, leaving them dependent on VPN workarounds to access new applications.

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