Netflix has completed its exit from Russia amid the war in Ukraine, with Russian subscribers unable to access the streaming giant

Russian subscribers have been unable to access streaming giant Netflix due to the Western company’s latest withdrawal due to the conflict in Ukraine.

Netflix’s site and apps have been down since Friday, and a Netflix spokesperson confirmed that subscribers can no longer access them.

“This is the implementation of the exit from the Russian market,” announced in March, a Netflix spokesperson told AFP on Monday.

The US-based platform announced in early March that it was withdrawing from Russia after Moscow sent thousands of troops to pro-Western Ukraine.

A spokeswoman said the company waited until the end of the current billing cycle before suspending customers.

Netflix is ​​the world’s leading streaming platform with 221.8 million subscribers at the end of 2021, but was a minor player in Russia.

In a letter to shareholders in April, the company said it had lost 7,00,000 paid subscribers after pulling out of Russia, blaming its exit on its first global subscriber decline in a decade.

Netflix is ​​among a number of foreign companies that have announced they are suspending or pulling out of Russia since Moscow’s campaign in Ukraine began on February 24.

In March, Netflix and TikTok suspended most of their services in Russia as the government clamped down on what people and the media could say about Russia’s war in Ukraine.

A shutdown of online entertainment and news could further isolate the country and its people after many multinational corporations cut Russia off from essential financial services, technology and consumer goods in response to Western economic sanctions. and global outrage at the invasion of Ukraine.

US credit card companies Visa, Mastercard and American Express announced that they will cut their services in Russia on the first weekend of March. South Korea’s Samsung, a leading supplier of smartphones and computer chips, has said it will join other major tech companies including Apple, Microsoft, Intel and Dell in halting shipments to the country. .

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