Netflix exited Russia amid Ukraine war. Users lost access to content

Netflix is one of the top OTT giants with over 221.8 million subscribers has left the Russian OTT market.

Russian subscribers have lost access to streaming giant Netflix in the latest pullout of a Western company over the conflict in Ukraine.

The official Netflix site and apps were no longer available from Friday and a Netflix spokesperson confirmed that subscribers no longer had access.

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

Netflix announced in early March that the tech giant is withdrawing its streaming services from Russia after Moscow sent thousands of troops into pro-Western Ukraine.

Netflix’s spokesperson said the company had waited until the end of the current billing cycle before cutting off customers.

The company said in an April letter to shareholders that it had lost 700k paid subscribers as a result of its withdrawal from Russia, blaming the pullout for its first global drop in subscribers in a decade.

Back in March, Netflix and TikTok suspended most of their services in Russia as the government cracked down on what people and media outlets can say about Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Pulling the plug-off of online entertainment and information is likely to further isolate the country and its people. Multinational businesses have cut off Russia from vital financial services, technology, and a variety of consumer products in response to Western economic sanctions and global outrage over the invasion of Ukraine.

US credit card companies Visa, MasterCard, and American Express all said over the March’s first weekend they should cut service in Russia. South Korea’s Samsung, a leading supplier of both smartphones and computer chips, said it would halt product shipments to the country, joining other big tech companies such as Apple, Microsoft, Intel, Nokia, and Dell.