More details is here
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=525168.0I think it's good time to educate russians about the benefits of bitcoin.
I'm calling all russian speaking to start massive campaing promoting bitcoin in comments and discussions of relevant articles in russian press. May be their dumb authorities will finally realize that bitcoin is their friend.
OP please dont chinese whisper something,. (a link that leads to another link, that leads to a news media story, which has not fully quoted or shown the original source document/interview to verify)
again stop causing chinese whispers.
now to correct you. russian people can still go to their bank or to an ATM and get their money out. the only thing that has changed is that mastercard do not process transactions on retail outlets.
The bank added that its own services relating to Visa and Mastercard cards, like withdrawing cash from the banks ATMs works fine.
so at worse instead of handing a card over to a retail cashier the people of russia have to go to an ATM and buy stff the old way ( paper money ) until the banks issue new cards with a new processor.
so your title should read mastercard/visa have stopped processing transactions for customers in russia.
i am just thankful you are requesting others to educate, and not endorsing yourself as an educator