The point is: they never went through with this. They could easily pressure Google / Apple to comply, but they didn't. China pressured Apple to remove all kind of apps so it's very much doable.

    > Thousands of essential services have stopped working and internet in the country came to a standstill for days. Many were pissed off and loosing money, including folks working for the government, so it was not tenable to continue.

They banned tons of IP subnets, but that's all. If they actually wanted Google / Apple to remove the app they could easily use different ways for that: e.g blocking Google Ads income, or making Apple / Google Pay services unlawful.

   > Do you have any proof for the Kremlin visit is it as unsubstantiated as the rest of your post?

Vice president of the company was participating IT industry meeting with premier minister of Russia:

https://www.rbc.ru/business/10/07/2020/5f08406a9a7947867c1d9...