Amazon stops accepting new AWS customers in Russia and Belarus

Another important internet player is changing its relationship with Russia due to the country’s invasion of Ukraine. Over the weekend, Amazon quietly stopped accepting new Amazon Web Services customers in Russia and Belarus, as first reported by The New York Times. The company announced the change in an update on Tuesday to a blog post it published last week.

“Given the current events and the uncertainty and lack of credit available in Russia right now, we’re not accepting new Russian AWS customers at this moment,” a spokesperson for Amazon told the outlet.

In practice, the move is unlikely to have a major impact on Russia. That’s because Amazon already had an existing policy in place that saw it not do business with the Russian government. It also doesn’t have any data centers or offices in Russia. Additionally, of its biggest AWS customers in the country, Amazon notes most are multinational companies with local development teams.

Still, the decision sees yet another major US tech company distance itself from the country. In recent days, Cogent Communications and Lumen, two of the largest American backbone internet providers, pulled out of Russia. That’s a move that’s expected to disrupt and slow down internet connectivity in the country. 

source https://www.engadget.com/amazon-aws-stops-accepting-new-customers-russia-belarus-230051139.html?src=rss