The ongoing sanctions crisis in the Crimea is the result of last year’s violent conflict within the Ukraine, and as a result of the intervention of Russia and the following acquisition of the small region of the Crimea, sanctions were put in place on the huge nation.
The thing about the situation that most worries people is the impact it has had not only on the region,but also on the global economy, as Russia has been feeling the effects of the United States and the European Commission’s impositions on their main sources of income. Falling oil prices and an unstable Ruble have both hit the nation’s pockets hard, and social unrest against Russia’s handling of controversial social issues is also rife.
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The Crimea may have once been part of Russia, but the Ukraine had a claim to the region following the collapse of the Soviet union, where the small area had a status as an autonomous republic in Ukrainian control. However, the Crimean people, inflamed during the Ukrainian unrest, elected to make nice with the Russians as their military swept into the region. Since then it has been under Russian control.
Sanctions have forced businesses, such as Apple, to prevent developers and contractors from working with them in the region, as the sanctions prohibit economic partnership. Valve’s Steam service also ceased developer partnership in the region recently as well.
App developers with Apple have been forced out of the developer portal by access blocks, and have been notified by Apple that they must cease use of the materials provided to them under the Apple developer agreement, and promptly ‘destroy’ those materials forthwith.
“The new sanctions on the Crimea Region announced by the US Government on December 19, 2014 and announced by the European Commission on December 18, 2014 prohibit the continuation of the RAD Agreement between you and Apple”
– Apple notification to now former developers
As international crises go, this one is probably our generations biggest – of course we’ve had wars over oil and tensions between nations, but for the first time the EU and the US are forcing the hand of a former rival superpower, and the results have been crippling to the Russian economy.
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The ban on importation into the US “directly or indirectly, of any goods, services, or technology from the Crimea region of Ukraine” as well as the opposite “exportation, reexportation, sale, or supply, directly or indirectly, from the United States, or by a United States person, wherever located, of any goods, services, or technology to the Crimea region of Ukraine” penned by US politicians and echoed by the EU is economic leverage in its simplest form.
Nobody knows if Russia is going to back down on their support of the Crimea – the repercussions of the continued claim on the area are an internal matter in the country. The reaction there, both economically and socially, is going to be hard to keep under control.
Via: Techspot
Via: Techcrunch