I think they should make withdrawing from Georgia a condition and hold up any deals. Also, not too thrilled about seeing millions of legal iPhones in Russian spam/hacker's hands. Not that it would make any difference.

If Russia's course were determined by her people instead of a KGB mobster like Putin, that might have effect. However, if the man and his puppet president are willing to stop all oil and natural gas sales for a few weeks to cripple the surrounding nations, I think withholding the iPhone from the Russian "market" would be a laughable sanction.

Putin does not care about the Russian people. He wants power- trying to "reclaim" what glory and lands it had before, but more in the manner of the czars than soviets.

As for hacking the iPhone, well, I've got more faith in BSD UNIX (leopard) than winblows.

The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming.
So many iPhones. Do the Russians really have that much money to spend? 1.5 million iPhones is a fairly large amount for a country like that. I'm not putting the Russians down or anything. I'm only thinking that their economy hasn't fully recovered yet.

Russia did a great thing, honoring their commitment to protect South Ossetia, from those ethnic cleansing monsters in Georgia.

That anyone would defend ethnic cleansing in the modern era, is ashame.

The ignorant comments of the above two posters, is a sad commentary on the ignorance of some people. Anyone who knows the facts on the ground, knows the Georgia launched an attack on the Ossetian people, and the democratically elected peaceful people of Ossetia asked the Russians for help.

I'm disgusted by these remarks. It's the same old same old. Iraq was our friend, because Iran held hostages. The taliban was our friend because the fought the soviets.

Now these Georgian henchman, ethnic cleansers are our friend? Hardly, they are running a pseudo-democracy, to put it mildly.

Please keep in mind that Georgia attacked first and Russia merely came to the aid of Ossetia. I'm not defending Putin or advocating that he's a great guy, but let's not ignore the fact that this conflict was started by our ally and not by Russia.

Well, if you look who is buying a lot of property in the US or the most expensive parts of London, or the lists of the worlds richest men, it's evident that there is a lot of money floating round in Russia.

Like China or India, it's just not as evenly distributed as in a typical Western economy, but don't forget that it's a huge country so even if the middle class is a far smaller percentage, it is still a significant market (far bigger than, say, Belgium or Monaco, which we wouldn't question).

First, this an article about the iPhone. If you wish to opine on world events, chose a more appropriate forum.

Second, Putin is no longer the president of Russia. I realize that his name is easier to remember than Medvedev, but that is no excuse.

Third, Russians already pay substantial amounts for their phones since they are all unlocked and unsubsidized. It is really nothing to pay $400 to $500 for a new phone here as it is. Vertu, which is in the $5,000 to $10,000 range are everywhere.

I think Apple could sell a million iPhones in Moscow alone considering there are roughly 500,000 black market phones in the country already and people paid, if bought here, anywhere from $1,000 to $2,000 for them. The new 3G is running around $2,000 in the markets.

Russians love their cell phones and trade them in for the latest model on a regular basis. The iPhone will be hotter here than in many other European countries, especially if the price is right.

If you don't know that Putin is in complete and TOTAL CONTROL... you don't know much else, my friend. Apple - out of Russia. Russia, out of the G8!

can some moderator get off thier a$$ and delete some of these stupid post that are in no way relevant to the discussion. only 2 of these post should be here.. if you want to discuss the issues go to cnn or fox. there are even some nice forums on the net for this type of discussion... but here is not the place.