Steam has closed the possibility of buying games for Crimeans

Store action caused by US sanctions

January 11, it became aware of the intention of the company Valve no later than February 1, 2015 to prohibit users from the Crimea to buy products in the Steam app store.

Yesterday, several publications and the Steam VKontakte unofficial page confirmed that residents of the peninsula can no longer purchase games on Steam. Attempting a transaction results in a message indicating that a purchase is impossible due to US trade sanctions.
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Thus, Valve is subject to the decree of the President of the United States of December 20 last year, which prohibits the export of American goods and technologies, as well as the sale and supply of services to the Crimea. The embargo extends to the IT sector: Internet services, software. US companies must cease operations on the peninsula before February 1, 2015.

Only purchase directly from the store is blocked. Users can still play free-to-play products, for example, Dota 2. The ban on the purchase can be immediately terminated after the lifting of sanctions.

Perhaps workarounds in the form of buying CD-keys for Steam on third-party sites or receiving gifts from users from other regions will continue to work. But Valve promises that when it detects attempts to circumvent regional restrictions, accounts will be blocked.

Earlier, Crimeans have already lost access to the largest remote work exchanges Odesk and Elance. Yesterday, Apple blocked the accounts of Crimean developers on the developer.apple.com portal.