Airbnb Suspends Operations In Russia And Belarus

Airbnb’s CEO and co-founder Brian Chesky

Sanctions against Russia continue to pile up as the country’s attack on Ukraine continues. Many companies have cut of Russia from accessing their services and networks. For instance, MasterCard and Visa have taken Russia off their networks, App Store and Google Play Store have also deleted state-owned Russian Today and Sputnik from their app stores.

Airbnb has announced that it has suspended all operations in Russia and Belarus, following Russia’s attacks on Ukraine. The announcement was made by Airbnb’s CEO and co-founder Brian Chesky and it is part of the big effort to shut off Russia following its actions against Ukraine.

The company and its executives failed to elaborate on what it means by “it is suspending its operations in Russia”. The move may, however, not significantly affect Airbnb as Russia has been receiving fewer and fewer inward flights – the majority of airlines have stopped flying to Russia following the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

Earlier this week, the company announced that it was going to provide temporary housing for up to 100,000 people fleeing Ukraine. The company said it was going to fund these stays alongside donations that’ll be received via its Airbnb.org Refugee Fund.

People have been booking stays in Ukraine with the intention of helping hosts; they do not have intentions to stay in these properties. The movement was started by the Quentin Quarantino Instagram account, which makes memes on Instagram to raise money for charitable causes. The account has almost a million followers.

On Thursday, the account handler tweeted that “Yesterday I shared an idea to support Ukraine by booking rooms for rent on Airbnb. 24 hours later, 100′s of people are booking Airbnbs in Ukraine as a way to send immediate monetary assistance to people in hard-hit areas. The messages in response from the hosts are so moving.”

Currently, over $50 million worth of cryptocurrency has been donated to Ukraine as the war enters its second week. In the first week, more than $10 million worth of cryptocurrencies was donated to the country.