Netflix suspends its services in Russia
Russia has faced numerous sanctions from companies in recent days following its ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
Video streaming giant Netflix confirmed to CNBC earlier today that it has suspended its services in Russia. According to the company, this latest development comes following the country’s invasion of Ukraine.
Several companies, including Mastercard and Visa, have suspended their services in Russia in light of its ongoing attacks in Ukraine. A Netflix spokesperson said;
“Given the circumstances on the ground, we have decided to suspend our service in Russia.”
Suspending its services in Russia wouldn’t hurt Netflix’s performance as the company has roughly a million subscribers in the country. This is a small percentage of its total 222 million subscribers globally.
The suspension of its services in Russia came after Netflix previously stopped projects and acquisitions in the country after the country began its invasion of Ukraine.
Netflix had four Russian-language series in production, which were cancelled following the invasion of Ukraine.
Companies in various parts of the world are taking a hard stance on Russia, with some pulling their services while others have stopped the sales of products.
Apple, Visa and Mastercard are amongst the leading companies globally that have stopped providing services to their Russian customers.
However, some leading cryptocurrency entities have stated that they won’t stop ordinary Russians from accessing their services. Binance, Coinbase and Kraken have all said they won’t freeze Russian-based accounts.
Coinbase’s CEO Brian Armstrong said;
Some ordinary Russians are using crypto as a lifeline now that their currency has collapsed. Many of them likely oppose what their country is doing, and a ban would hurt them, too.”
A Binance spokesperson also said;
“We are not going to unilaterally freeze millions of innocent users’ accounts. Crypto is meant to provide greater financial freedom for people across the globe. To unilaterally decide to ban people’s access to their crypto would fly in the face of the reason why crypto exists.”