Evacuation From Hard-Hit Mariupol Is Halted After Shelling
LVIV, Ukraine — As Russian forces pummel Ukrainian cities and towns into rubble, setting off a mass exodus of panicked people and creating increasingly dire conditions for those who remain, the prospect of a limited cease-fire in one besieged coastal city collapsed under the hail of reported Russian shelling on Saturday.
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia also threatened that Ukraine might lose its statehood. “The current leadership needs to understand that if they continue doing what they are doing, they risk the future of Ukrainian statehood,” he said at a meeting in Moscow on Saturday, in his first extended remarks since the start of the war. “If that happens, they will have to be blamed for that.”
About half a million people in the Ukrainian city Mariupol were entering their third day without heat, electricity or water when the cease-fire was announced, but a partial evacuation was quickly halted amid what Ukrainian officials said was renewed shelling. As Russia tightened its hold on some major cities, fearful residents are fleeing west adding to the fastest-moving flow of refugees in Europe since the end of World War II, the head of the United Nations refugee agency said on Saturday.
Mr. Putin is further tightening state control over information about the war, and it remains unclear how much information people in Russia are seeing, even as the country’s isolation intensifies. On Saturday, Russia’s state airline Aeroflot, said it would suspend all international flights from March 8 “due to additional circumstances that prevent the performance of flights.”
Here are the latest developments:
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Russia’s military is trying to add to its gains in the south, moving closer to the vital port city of Odessa, as it tries to cut off the Ukrainian government from the sea.
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Outside Kyiv, there have been fierce attacks and counterattacks as Ukrainian forces battle to keep the Russians from encircling it. The vast armed convoy approaching Kyiv from the north still seems to be largely stalled, according to Western analysts, and the Ukrainian military says its forces have been attacking it where they can.
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Since Russian forces surrounded Mariupol this week, the city has been facing a growing humanitarian crisis. It is largely impossible to bring in medical supplies and other relief. Despite daily bombardments, the local government has refused to surrender.
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NATO members are rushing to resupply the Ukrainians with Javelin and Stinger missiles and other weapons. American shipments represent the largest single authorized transfer of arms from U.S. military warehouses to another country, according to a Pentagon official.
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A video received by The New York Times gives a glimpse inside the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant as Russian forces were attacking it on Friday. In the video, a warning is issued in Russian over the facility’s loudspeakers, apparently directed at the soldiers outside. “You are endangering the safety of the entire world,” a voice says.
March 5, 2022, 9:46 a.m. ET
March 5, 2022, 9:46 a.m. ET
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More than 700,000 Ukrainians have fled to Poland over the last week through eight border crossings, the American ambassador to Poland told two senior U.S. lawmakers leading a delegation to the southeastern Polish city of Rzeszow on Saturday.
The ambassador, Mark Brzezinski, said residents around Poland had voluntarily opened their homes to host multiple families who had left Ukraine since the Russian invasion.
“When we think of Poland, we think of the Solidarity movement,” Mr. Brzezinski told Representatives Gregory Meeks, Democrat of New York, and Michael McCaul, Republican of Texas, the two top lawmakers on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. He was referring to the trade union that galvanized civil protests against a repressive Polish government in the 1980s.
“This is another solidarity movement,” Mr. Brzezinski said.
He added: “Showing of reassurance to the Poles — that Congress is here with the Poles for the long term, during this complete humanitarian crisis — is such a great thing to do.”
Mr. Meeks said the bipartisan congressional delegation mirrored the unity among many nations and government organizations against Russia’s aggression.
“We’re coming with one message, and that is to be together — to support Poland,” Mr. Meeks said. “We’re thanking them for all that they are doing, and we’re going to do all we can to help the Ukrainian people.”
March 5, 2022, 9:45 a.m. ET
March 5, 2022, 9:45 a.m. ET
The New York Times
On the Scene: New York’s Russian Enclave
Corey Kilgannon📍Reporting from Brighton Beach, Brooklyn
On the Scene: New York’s Russian Enclave
Corey Kilgannon📍Reporting from Brighton Beach, Brooklyn
“The Russians here are all against Putin,” Albina Kouterman, 83, left, told me on Friday in Brighton Beach, home to one of the largest communities of Russian-speakers in this country. I had gone there to see what residents thought of the invasion of Ukraine.
Here’s what they had to say →
March 5, 2022, 9:33 a.m. ET
March 5, 2022, 9:33 a.m. ET
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The Russian Federal Customs Service said that its officials had detained an American basketball player after finding vape cartridges that contained hashish oil in her luggage at the Sheremetyevo airport near Moscow.
The Customs Service said in a statement that the player had won two Olympic gold medals with the United States, but it did not release the player’s name. The Russian news agency TASS, citing a law enforcement source, identified the player as Brittney Griner, a seven-time W.N.B.A. All-Star center for the Phoenix Mercury. Griner won gold medals with the U.S. women’s national basketball team in 2020 and 2016.
The Customs Service released a video of a traveler at the airport that appeared to be the 31-year-old Griner, wearing a mask and black sweatshirt, going through security. The video showed an individual removing a package from the traveler’s bag.
According to the statement, a criminal case has been opened into the large-scale transportation of drugs, which can carry a sentence of up to 10 years behind bars in Russia. The basketball player was taken into custody while the investigation is ongoing, the officials said.
Griner’s agent and spokespeople for the W.N.B.A. and the Phoenix Mercury did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The detainment comes amid the escalating conflict created by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and high tensions between Russia and the United States. In recent years, Russia has been detaining and sentencing American citizens on what United States officials often say are trumped-up charges. The arrest of a high-profile American could be seen as Russia attempting to create leverage for a potential prisoner exchange with the American government.
Many W.N.B.A. players compete in Russia, where salaries are more lucrative, during the American league’s off-season. Griner has played for the Russian team UMMC Ekaterinburg for several years.
Some American players began making plans to leave Russia following the country’s invasion of Ukraine.
“The few W.N.B.A. players who were competing this off-season in Ukraine are no longer in the country,” the W.N.B.A. told ESPN in a statement this week. “The league has also been in contact with W.N.B.A. players who are in Russia, either directly or through their agents. We will continue to closely monitor the situation.”
March 5, 2022, 8:47 a.m. ET
March 5, 2022, 8:47 a.m. ET
The New York Times
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President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia warned on Saturday that Ukraine might lose its statehood if its leaders continued to resist his military invasion of the country.
He also described the Western sanctions imposed against Russia since his military invasion of Ukraine as “akin to a declaration of war.”
“The current leadership needs to understand that if they continue doing what they are doing, they risk the future of Ukrainian statehood,” he said at a meeting in Moscow on Saturday, in his first extended remarks since the start of the war. “If that happens,” he said, “they will have to be blamed for that.”
He made the comments during a meeting with female flight attendants from Russian airlines before International Women’s Day, which will be marked on Tuesday. Mr. Putin has often used such choreographed events to make high-profile statements.
In the remarks, Mr. Putin appeared to outline his military tactics, while threatening that any no-fly zone, as Ukrainian officials have called for in recent days, would have devastating consequences.
“Warehouses with weapons and ammunition, aviation, air defense systems — it takes time to destroy air defense systems,” the Russian leader said. “This work is practically done — that’s why there are demands to impose a no-fly zone. The realization of that demand would bring catastrophic results not only to Europe, but to the whole world.”
NATO leaders have resisted the calls for a no-fly zone, worried that implementing one could lead to a larger war.
Indeed, Mr. Putin suggested that such a measure could broaden the conflict.
“We hear calls to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine,” he said. “It is impossible to do from Ukrainian territory — it can only be done from the territory of other states. But any moves in such direction will be seen by us as participation in an armed conflict by the country that will create threats to our servicemen.”
He reiterated his earlier points about the need to protect the Russian-speaking population in Ukraine’s East against nationalists and to avert Ukraine’s NATO accession.
He said that Russia was ready to withstand the sanctions imposed on his country since he began the invasion of Ukraine — calling the penalties “akin to a declaration of war” — and that Moscow’s demands had been made clear to the Ukrainians.
“Our proposals are on the table with the group of negotiators from Kyiv,” he said. “Hopefully, they will respond positively to that.”
Although rumors have swirled through Russia in recent days of impending martial law, conscription and closed borders because of the war, Mr. Putin stressed that Russia did not plan to impose martial law unless there was aggression against Russian territory.
He also vowed that conscription would not be an issue.
“Only professional military servicemen take part in this operation, officers and contract soldiers,” Mr. Putin said. “Not a single conscript takes part in it, and we don’t plan to send them there.”
And he expressed full confidence in his military’s ability to succeed in its task.
“Our army will solve all tasks — I don’t doubt it for a second,” Mr. Putin said. “This is confirmed by how the operation is ongoing. Everything is being done according to a plan, as the General Staff planned it.”
March 5, 2022, 8:28 a.m. ET
March 5, 2022, 8:28 a.m. ET
The New York Times
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia said that Ukraine might lose its statehood. “The current leadership needs to understand that if they continue doing what they are doing, they risk the future of Ukrainian statehood,” Mr. Putin said at a meeting in Moscow on Saturday, in his first extended remarks since the start of the war. “If that happens, they will have to be blamed for that.”
March 5, 2022, 8:26 a.m. ET
March 5, 2022, 8:26 a.m. ET
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Russia’s state airline, Aeroflot, said on Saturday that it would suspend all international flights from Tuesday “due to additional circumstances that prevent the performance of flights.”
The cancellation will also apply to its subsidiaries Aurora and Rossiya, the airline said, though Aeroflot said it would continue to fly to Minsk, the capital of Belarus.
Russia’s airline industry has been hit hard as countries around the world have imposed sanctions on Russia because of President Vladimir V. Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine. Mr. Putin and President Aleksandr G. Lukashenko of Belarus are allies, and Russian forces have attacked Ukraine from Belarus.
In a further sign of damage to the country’s airline industry, Russia’s aviation authority, Rosaviatsiya, recommended on Saturday that Russian airlines with planes registered in foreign jurisdictions suspend all flights abroad from Sunday because of fears that they could be seized by foreign governments.
The suspension effectively means that Russian airlines will no longer be able to fly foreign-made aircraft on international routes.
It is also likely to become harder for Russian airlines to use foreign-made aircraft inside the country, because companies such as Boeing and Airbus have suspended parts, maintenance and technical support services after the invasion.
There were 332 Boeing aircraft among the Russian airline fleet of 861 aircraft in service as of the beginning of March, according to Cirium, an analytics company.
The European Union has ordered leasing companies to terminate hundreds of aircraft leases by Russian companies. Russia has retaliated by banning Western-based airlines from entering its airspace.
March 5, 2022, 8:00 a.m. ET
March 5, 2022, 8:00 a.m. ET
Michael Schwirtz
Reporting from Ukraine
The mayor of Kherson, which has been under Russian occupation for three days, said in an interview that Russian forces had fired shots into the air to break up a protest of people waving Ukrainian flags. The mayor, who said he was at the protest, shared video of residents gathered on what appeared to be Liberty Square. Gunshots are clearly audible.
March 5, 2022, 7:51 a.m. ET
March 5, 2022, 7:51 a.m. ET
Ukrainians were evacuated from the city of Irpin, northwest of Kyiv, during heavy shelling and bombing on Saturday.
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March 5, 2022, 7:38 a.m. ET
March 5, 2022, 7:38 a.m. ET
Matthew Mpoke Bigg
Reporting from London
Russia’s state airline, Aeroflot, said on Saturday that it would suspend all international flights from Tuesday “due to additional circumstances that prevent the performance of flights.” The cancellation will also apply to its subsidiaries Aurora and Rossiya, the airline said.
March 5, 2022, 7:36 a.m. ET
March 5, 2022, 7:36 a.m. ET
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LVIV, Ukraine — The city of Lviv, no more than 50 miles from Ukraine’s border with Poland, has been spared any direct attack in the first 10 days of Russia’s invasion. But it is rapidly becoming an important rear base — channeling supplies and men to the frontline cities and supporting hundreds of thousands of people fleeing the other way.
A genteel city of cobbled streets and Austro-Hungarian architecture — and a UNESCO world heritage site — Lviv has already become home for foreign embassies and government departments relocated from the capital, Kyiv, and is the main route in for medicines, equipment and personnel. And Western intelligence analysts say that foreign-supplied weapons are also being brought through the region across the land border with Poland.
“The Lviv region is a live corridor,” said Oksana Yarynets, 44, an economics professor and former member of Parliament who was organizing supplies and medical training for volunteers at a center for army veterans in the city.
Now, Lviv’s train station is clogged with thousands of people waiting for the few trains that still ply the route to Poland, and cars packed with families tail back for almost 10 miles at the main land crossing at Medyka.
Officials are bracing for tens of thousands more to arrive from the capital, Kyiv, amid what refugee officials say is the largest movement of refugees within Europe since World War II.
March 5, 2022, 7:35 a.m. ET
March 5, 2022, 7:35 a.m. ET
The New York Times
Russian forces in Ukraine seized Europe’s biggest nuclear power plant on Friday, tightened their noose around the capital and threatened more southern cities in their march to control the Black Sea coast, intensifying the deadly destruction and chaos from the eight-day-old invasion.
Other articles on Saturday’s front page:
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As Russian troops mass outside Kyiv, there is a growing sense of a slowly tightening vise and, in some quarters, rising panic. Tens of thousands of people have fled. But tens of thousands more have remained behind, and as the avenues of escape have inexorably narrowed, they are growing increasingly desperate to get out.
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Immigrants from the former Soviet bloc were never a monolith, but they bonded over shared language and history. Now, they are shifting away from being seen as one group.
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The war in Ukraine has provoked an onslaught of cyberattacks by apparent volunteers unlike any that security researchers have seen in previous conflicts, creating widespread disruption, confusion and chaos that researchers fear could provoke more serious attacks by nation-state hackers, escalate the war on the ground or harm civilians.
March 5, 2022, 7:08 a.m. ET
March 5, 2022, 7:08 a.m. ET
Shortly after a limited cease-fire proposal in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol fell apart on Saturday, Russian shelling in the town of Volnovakha ended the prospect of a humanitarian corridor there being established, Ukrainian officials said.
Earlier in the morning, Russia had said that its forces would suspend military engagements at 9 a.m. in both places. By noon local time, both efforts had collapsed as Russian forces continued to bombard the areas, according to Ukrainian officials.
March 5, 2022, 7:07 a.m. ET
March 5, 2022, 7:07 a.m. ET
Lara Jakes
Poland’s foreign minister said that Russian attacks on civilians and sensitive properties like nuclear power plants in Ukraine amounted to war crimes, and demanded that they be vigorously prosecuted. The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court said this week that the court was launching an immediate criminal investigation of possible war crimes in Ukraine.
March 5, 2022, 6:16 a.m. ET
March 5, 2022, 6:16 a.m. ET
The evacuation of civilians from the shellshocked southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol has been halted because of continued Russian shelling, the city administration said in a statement on Telegram on Saturday afternoon.
“The Russian side is not upholding the cease-fire and is continuing to shell Mariupol and the surrounding regions,” the city administration said.
Earlier in the day, officials said that Russia and Ukraine had agreed to a limited cease-fire to allow civilians to evacuate and medications and other essential supplies to be brought into Mariupol, a strategic port city on the Sea of Azov.
Tens of thousands of Mariupol residents have been without heat, water and electricity since Thursday, when the southern coastal city was encircled by Russian forces.
March 5, 2022, 5:59 a.m. ET
March 5, 2022, 5:59 a.m. ET
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CHISINAU, Moldova — Russia’s war in Ukraine has caused the fastest-moving flow of refugees in Europe since the end of World War II, the head of the United Nations refugee agency said on Saturday.
In the 10 days since the war began, at least 1.2 million people in Ukraine have fled to neighboring countries. That movement of mostly women and children is coming at a faster rate than the relocation of people at the height of the Balkan wars in the 1990s, and far faster than the one during the Hungarian refugee crisis of 1956, said Filippo Grandi, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
“This is the fastest-moving refugee crisis — let’s call it a refugee crisis, please, it’s a refugee crisis — since World War II,” Mr. Grandi said in an interview.
“The Balkans moved millions of people, but over a very long period of time,” Mr. Grandi added. “It lasted six or seven years.”
Mr. Grandi had just returned from a visit to the border between Ukraine and Moldova, and said he had been particularly struck by the suddenness with which the refugees crossing there had been wrested from ordinary, comfortable lives in what had until recently been calm, functional cities.
“It is an avalanche of people with cars, with pets,” Mr. Grandi said. “It’s entire cities being emptied, and crossing the border. It’s very specific, very peculiar. It will come with its own needs and specificities.”
Poland has taken in the largest number of Ukrainians, but Mr. Grandi was particularly concerned about Moldova, which has received more refugees per capita than any of Ukraine’s other neighbors. Since Feb. 24, more than 200,000 people coming from Ukraine have entered Moldova, which has an official population of 2.6 million and is one of Europe’s poorest countries.
Unlike its western neighbors, Moldova is not a member of the European Union, and therefore lacks significant institutional support from the bloc.
Mr. Grandi said that Moldova and its neighbors would need profound help to absorb newcomers into their education, health and social service systems, a process that will inevitably strain the social consensus in those countries.
But he said he had been heartened by the swiftness with which European countries had responded to the crisis — which he hoped signaled a paradigm shift in the way that European governments approach refugees.
On Thursday, the European Union’s 27 members unanimously agreed to automatically give Ukrainian refugees the right to live and work within the bloc for up to three years.
It was a collective act of welcome that had no precedent during the refugee crisis of 2015, when more than a million refugees, mainly from Syria and Afghanistan, sought safety in Europe.
“I hope that it’s a good lesson that then Europe will accept to apply to other people coming to seek refuge in the continent,” Mr. Grandi said.
If there was any silver lining to the Ukrainian refugee crisis, “it’s that Europe now has understood that anybody can become a refugee,” Mr. Grandi said. “Anybody can become a country being hit by a wave of refugees.”
March 5, 2022, 5:56 a.m. ET
March 5, 2022, 5:56 a.m. ET
The New York Times
A couple who became parents as bombs fell in Ukraine amid Russia’s invasion shared their experience with Sabrina Tavernise, a former correspondent who is one of the hosts of “The Daily” podcast.
Birth in War
Sabrina Tavernise speaks with a Ukrainian couple who became parents the day Russian bombs began to fall.
March 5, 2022, 5:52 a.m. ET
March 5, 2022, 5:52 a.m. ET
LVIV, Ukraine — Russia continued its broad offensive in Ukraine on Saturday, pummeling cities and towns into rubble, and a limited cease-fire for the besieged southern city of Mariupol ended nearly as soon as it began, Ukrainian officials said. The Russian targeting of civilian infrastructure has set off a mass exodus of panicked people from cities including Kyiv, the capital, and created increasingly dire conditions for those who remain.
About half a million people in Mariupol, a coastal city, were entering their third day without heat, electricity or water on Saturday. Since Russian forces surrounded the city two days earlier, it has been largely impossible to bring in medical supplies and other relief. Despite daily bombardments, the local government has refused to surrender.
The United States and its allies have continued to ramp up their efforts to punish Russia’s economy for the increasingly brutal assault on Ukraine. But President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, who has tightened his government’s control over information about the war, has shown no intention of changing course.
March 5, 2022, 5:03 a.m. ET
March 5, 2022, 5:03 a.m. ET
Michael Schwirtz
Reporting from Ukraine
The governor of Ukraine’s Donetsk region said that Russian forces were observing their cease-fire only in that region and not along the entire evacuation corridor for residents of Mariupol. There are ongoing negotiations with the Russian side to guarantee the cease-fire along the whole route.
March 5, 2022, 4:58 a.m. ET
March 5, 2022, 4:58 a.m. ET
Lara Jakes
Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken has landed in Rzeszow, Poland, where he will meet with top Polish officials about the Russian invasion that has pushed more than one million refugees to flee Ukraine.
March 5, 2022, 3:33 a.m. ET
March 5, 2022, 3:33 a.m. ET
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As the Russian military advance continues, Ukraine’s defense minister said on Saturday that his country’s forces and its cities were most vulnerable to air assault.
“Aircraft of all kinds is bombing cities, towns and civilian infrastructure, including critical and dangerous nuclear and hydropower plants,” the minister, Oleksii Reznikov, said in a statement.
He said that the Russian assault had hit residential neighborhoods, schools, hospitals and churches, and that its forces had shelled transportation stations as people tried to flee.
The Russian forces’ primary efforts have been apparent in the encirclement of Kyiv, Mr. Reznikov said, and the weakening of resistance in the cities that the Russians have encircled or are pressing to capture.
He said that in Chernihiv, an area just north of Kyiv where dozens were killed after a missile struck an apartment complex there on Thursday, Ukrainian troops continued to hold their positions.
Ukrainian forces destroyed a key bridge over a river so that it Russian forces could not use it, he said. It is one of many bridges around the capital that have been blown up in an effort to slow the Russians.
March 5, 2022, 3:14 a.m. ET
March 5, 2022, 3:14 a.m. ET
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Russia and Ukraine agreed to a limited “cease-fire” on Saturday morning to allow medicine and other essential supplies to be brought into the besieged coastal city of Mariupol and a smaller town in eastern Ukraine.
After Russia’s Defense Ministry announced the “cease-fire,” offering limited details about how it would work, local and national Ukrainian officials confirmed that “a regime of silence” would allow for “humanitarian corridors” to be opened.
“The enemy does not know the value of human life, but we will do everything for assistance to our citizens,” Oleksii Reznikov, Ukraine’s defense minister, said in statement. “We hope that the humanitarian corridor will work and we will be able to evacuate civilians.”
Tens of thousands of Mariupol residents have been without heat, water and electricity since Thursday, when the southern coastal city was encircled by Russian forces.
The city’s mayor, Vadym Boychenko, said on Saturday that a cease-fire would allow for work to be done to restore critical infrastructure destroyed by Russian shelling.
A statement from the office of President Volodymyr Zelensky made no mention of whether people would be granted safe passage to leave, and it was unclear how the Ukrainians and the Russian forces in the area would coordinate to ensure that humanitarian assistance could be safely delivered.
March 5, 2022, 2:55 a.m. ET
March 5, 2022, 2:55 a.m. ET
Marc Santora
Reporting from Lviv, Ukraine
Ukraine’s government confirmed that efforts were underway to bring relief to the southern coastal city of Mariupol and the smaller town of Volnovakha in the eastern part of the country. The office of President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a statement that it should be possible to begin rebuilding the city’s critical infrastructure to restore light, water and communications. The statement made no mention of whether people would be granted safe passage to leave.
March 5, 2022, 2:10 a.m. ET
March 5, 2022, 2:10 a.m. ET
Marc Santora
Reporting from Lviv, Ukraine
The mayor of Mariupol said the city’s government had been informed of the Russian cease-fire agreement at 8:30 a.m. and that officials were making plans to bring in medicine and other essential supplies. He said a cease-fire would allow for work to be done to restore critical infrastructure destroyed by Russian shelling. Tens of thousands of Mariupol residents have been without heat, water and electricity since Thursday, when the southern coastal city was encircled by Russian forces. The mayor, Vadym Boychenko, said further updates would be provided as the cease-fire came into effect.
March 5, 2022, 1:46 a.m. ET
March 5, 2022, 1:46 a.m. ET
Anton Troianovski
The Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement that it was declaring a “cease-fire” starting at 10 a.m. Saturday, Moscow time. It also said that the Russian military was opening “humanitarian corridors” to allow civilians to leave the cities of Mariupol and Volnovakha. It was not immediately clear how the order would be implemented or whether it would apply to all of Ukraine.
March 5, 2022, 1:42 a.m. ET
March 5, 2022, 1:42 a.m. ET
Ian Austen
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation suspended reporting within Russia on Thursday, joining a growing list of news organizations. The government-owned broadcaster, which operates in both French and English, said in a statement that it is seeking “clarity” on recent Russian legislation “which appears to criminalize independent reporting on the current situation in Ukraine and Russia.”
Like other news organizations, including the BBC, the CBC said that the suspension was taken “out of concern for the risk to our journalists and staff in Russia.”
March 5, 2022, 12:20 a.m. ET
March 5, 2022, 12:20 a.m. ET
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With Samsung following Apple in suspending all shipments to Russia, two companies that together account for about half of all smartphone sales in the country have now paused distribution to Russian buyers.
Samsung, the South Korean technology giant, made its announcement in a statement on Saturday. When Apple said this week that it was suspending sales in Russia, the company drew praise on Twitter from Ukraine’s minister of digital transformation, Mykhailo Fedorov.
The moves are part of a wider exodus of companies from Russia after its invasion of Ukraine, one that has encompassed brands in automobiles, luxury retail and many other sectors.
For big technology firms, Russia is a relatively small cellphone market. Sales there account for less than 3 percent of all smartphone units shipped around the world, according to market research by the International Data Corporation.
But the recent moves by Apple and Samsung are enormously symbolic, said Michael S. Bernstam, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. Among “people of all income groups and ethnic groups and cities and towns across Russia, they will know that their government received a slap in the face,” he said. “This is a very important message.”
Russian buyers will still be able to buy from the Chinese company Xiaomi, which sold just over a quarter of all smartphones in Russia in the third quarter of last year, according to I.D.C.
The lost sales in Russia are not much of a sacrifice for international smartphone manufacturers, but the potential reputational damage of continuing to sell there could be much more significant, said James S. O’Rourke, a professor of management at the Mendoza College of Business at the University of Notre Dame.
“Your brand is judged in many ways by who buys it, who uses it, who you are in business with, who you are partners with,” he said. “You don’t want Vladimir Putin’s photo on your package.”
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/03/05/world/russia-ukraine
