Tbh this is a bad move for the company. I would rather prefer they ignored Russian gov. Just let them make all iphones illegal and see how the kids of happy unseeing unhearing "I am above politics" rich upper middle class in Russia finally wake up to the clusterfuck and make the next revolution happen. Joking but only sorta
This is the inevitable consequence of centralized curation and discovery—pressure points that neo-fascist states can use to suppress dissent. Now extend this to apps.
This is why the freedom to do what you want on your own devices, without gatekeeping, is so important. At least for podcasts there's likely workarounds, though only a small minority will use them.
On one hand Apple is telling the world how they are standing up to Russia in large PR piece filled and feed into the mass media echo chamber. Claiming themselves as defender of Fundamental Human Right, and their righteousness that put even Google's "Do No Evil" to shame.
On the other hand they are, as a business complying with Russia Rule of Law and take down certain podcast. ( Not as big of a deal but I could have insert a few thousand words essay on China here )
Apple runs the Internet's defacto index of podcasts, due to iTunes popularizing podcasting, and provides an API that many/most podcast applications use to find podcasts. When they delist a podcast from their index, it's like Google delisting a website from their index.
Tbh this is a bad move for the company. I would rather prefer they ignored Russian gov. Just let them make all iphones illegal and see how the kids of happy unseeing unhearing "I am above politics" rich upper middle class in Russia finally wake up to the clusterfuck and make the next revolution happen. Joking but only sorta