Employees of the presidential administration were asked to get rid of the iPhone and switch to smartphones of other brands and with a different operating system, informed March 20, Kommersant, citing sources close to the presidential administration, who link this decision to security measures. RTVI special correspondent Dmitry Nikitin studied in which departments the phones of the American company were officially purchased.
In total, the public markets give about 150 results for the “iPhone” request. Among them, however, we find contracts for the development of applications running on iOS, or similar procurement objects in writing (for example, the Digiphone receiver). There were about 20 such purchases among all.
The last purchase of American Apple phones was made in July 2022. Then an iPhone 13 Pro Max was purchased by the administration of the Head and Government of the Republic of Dagestan. In May, the same model was acquired by Ural JSC, owned by the Federal Property Management Agency. Another iPhone 13 Pro Max buyer in December 2021 was the daughter of the president’s director at Yaroslavl, Federal State Unitary Enterprise Russian Crafts Center, which produces jewelry.
In the summer of 2021, 611,000 rubles. Novikombank, owned by Rostec, spent on the purchase of iPhone 12, and in December of the same year, 755,000 rubles. VTB Bank spent on the purchase of 13th generation phones.
In November 2021, the iPhone 12 Pro Max was purchased by the “Main Information and Computing Center of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation”, and in 2018, the iPhone X 256 GB Silver with accessories was purchased. was purchased by the “Regional State Center for Standardization, Metrology and Testing of the Republic of Crimea”.
In fall 2021, the government banned government procurement of imported laptops and tablets under the “second supplement” rule, whereby all requests to supply such equipment from imported suppliers are rejected if at least least one request for the supply of national equipment the equipment is submitted.
According to Kommersant, employees of the presidential administration were instructed to get rid of the iPhone at a seminar held in early March in the Moscow region. According to one of the publication’s interlocutors, attendees at the event were forced at the end of the month to “either throw away or give the children” phones made by an American company.
According to one of Kommersant’s sources, the Kremlin can buy new smartphones for its employees. Another interlocutor with the publication, close to the Kremlin, heard that officials involved in domestic politics in regional administrations would also be banned from using Apple equipment.
According to the publication, the request to abandon the iPhone is due to security problems: the Kremlin believes that Apple gadgets are more susceptible to hacking and snooping than smartphones from other brands. Instead of the iPhone, employees of the presidential administration were recommended to buy smartphones with operating systems Android, its Chinese counterparts or Aurora.
