Amazon suspends access to Prime Video in Russia, halts shipments to the country – TechCrunch

Amazon is suspending access to Prime Video for customers based in Russia amid the country’s invasion of Ukraine. In a blog post about the announcement, the company also noted that it has suspended the shipment of retail products to customers based in Russia and Belarus. Amazon will also no longer be accepting new Russia and Belarus-based AWS customers and Amazon third-party sellers. In addition, the e-commerce giant will no longer be taking orders for “New World,” which is the only video game it sells directly in Russia.

“Given the ongoing situation in Russia and Ukraine, we’ve taken additional actions in the region. As a reminder, unlike some other U.S. technology providers, Amazon and AWS have no data centers, infrastructure, or offices in Russia, and we have a long-standing policy of not doing business with the Russian government,” the company said in the blog post.

Last week, Amazon announced that AWS has been working closely with Ukrainian customers and partners to keep their applications secure. The company says it has been partnering closely with Ukrainian IT organizations to fend off attacks and is working with organizations in Ukraine to share real-time intelligence.

The announcement comes as Netflix said it’s suspending its service in Russia earlier this week. The move came after the company said last week it would not comply with a new Russian law that requires streaming companies to host 20 Russian propaganda channels. Netflix has also paused all future projects it had planned to produce in Russia.

Amazon is joining the growing number of companies suspending operations in Russia amid its attack on Ukraine. Earlier this week, several companies, including PayPal, Mastercard, Visa and more, announced that they were suspending operations in the country. Last week, Apple confirmed that it halted product sales in Russia. The hardware giant also pulled Sputnik and RT News from the App Store and disabled some Apple Pay services in the country. Google followed Apple’s lead and removed the apps of Russia Today (RT) and Sputnik from its mobile app store. Google also paused its ads sales in Russia.