A new way of war: Tech’s response to Russian aggression

Russian President Vladimir Putin shocked Western society when he announced that he was invading Ukraine on Feb. 24. Since then, many nations of the free world have rallied behind Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as he tries to keep up the morale of his country in its efforts to defend against the invaders.

However, an interesting new facet of this war has popped up—the involvement of not only cyberwar but also restriction of access to many popular technologies in Russia. This is all in an effort to shut down Russia without having to get the military involved.

Many were concerned that Russia would hack into Ukrainian technology and possibly other nations. But this may have backfired. At one point several of their own government websites were down as a result of being hacked, including the Kremlin, State Duma and Ministry of Defense. However, this should not lessen our diligence since the Russians will likely mount a counterattack. Given the current nature of our society, this could disrupt the supply system, banking and even hospitals.

After financial sanctions were imposed on Russia in retaliation, many users in the country began to report that Apple Pay and Google Pay, popular contactless payment services, were no longer working. Apple finished off the job by halting sales of its products in the country and also officially limiting Apple Pay and the App Store there. They’ve also disabled features of Apple Maps in Ukraine in order to protect civilians. Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, tweeted on Feb. 24 his support for peace efforts, saying, “I am deeply concerned with the situation in Ukraine. We’re doing all we can for our teams there and will be supporting local humanitarian efforts. I am thinking of the people who are right now in harm’s way and joining all those calling for peace.”

Apple is not the only big tech company to limit its services in the rebel country. Meta decided to globally demote posts from Russian state media after requests to do so from the European Union. However, they are also facing degradation of their services in Russia due to new laws they have not complied with. Twitter has also responded to the EU’s request.

By Charles Metz