Apple for the day: nyet

The BBC has an article about Apple and Russia:

Technology giant Apple says it cannot sell products online in Russia because the rouble's value is too volatile for it to set prices. The company stopped sales of its iPhones (photo), iPads, and other products in the country after a day in which the currency went into free-fall. The rouble has lost more than twenty percent this week, despite a dramatic decision to raise interest rates from nearly eleven percent to seventeen percent.
By afternoon, the rouble was flat, with one dollar buying 68 roubles. Its all-time low, set on Wednesday, saw one dollar buying as many as 79 roubles.
Apple last month increased its prices in Russia by twenty percent, after the weakening rouble left products in the country cheaper than in the rest of Europe.
Russia's central bank said it had spent almost two billion dollars intervening in the currency market. It has spent around eighty billion dollars trying to prop up the rouble this year, but despite that, the currency has lost more than half its value against the dollar since January of 2014, with cheaper oil and Western sanctions over its stance over the Ukraine the chief factors. Both of these have weakened the Russian economy.
Russia's central bank has pledged fresh further measures to try to stabilize its currency, with First Deputy Governor Sergei Shvetsov describing the situation as "critical".
The rouble's slide this week was prompted by fears that the US was considering a fresh set of sanctions against the country for its support for separatists in the Ukraine.

Rico says the old Khruschev line rings a little hollow these days: