Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Apple has reinstated the apps made by the Russian technology group VK on the App Store, as reported earlier by The Guardian. The company removed the VK-owned social network VKontakte, email app Mail.ru, and others last month in response to sanctions the UK put on the financial institutions that own the Russian firm. According to the Russian outlet Interfax, the apps returned to the App Store late last week. It’s not clear why Apple has chosen to restore the VK-owned apps right now; as The Guardian notes, there hasn’t been an ownership change at VK.
At the time, Apple confirmed it blocked the apps globally because they’re “distributed by developers majority-owned or majority-controlled by one or more parties sanctioned by the UK…