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A Russian Passport Can Reportedly Get You Banned From Claude, Even Abroad
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Anthropic’s Claude AI service has begun requiring users to verify their identities and reportedly blocking accounts after they submit Russian passports, including those with active paid subscriptions.
This was reported by The Moscow Times on October 29, citing Russian technology outlet VC.ru and complaints from affected users.
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The service reportedly suspends access until users complete know-your-customer (KYC) verification, requiring identification documents and facial recognition. Some accounts have been permanently blocked after verification, and subscription payments have been refunded.
Anthropic conducts identity checks through Persona, a verification platform that requires users to upload a passport or another identification document and complete a facial scan.
One user in the Telegram community, "Sioloshnaia," reported being banned "within a minute" of submitting a Russian international passport. Other users claimed they successfully completed verification using Russian driver's licenses while selecting another country.
One Russian national living in New Zealand on a four-year visa reported losing access to Claude Code after submitting his Russian passport. The account was blocked despite New Zealand being among the countries where Claude officially operates.
The user had renewed his subscription just two days earlier. Another user reported on X that Claude stopped accepting requests after passport verification and that an appeal against the suspension was unsuccessful.
Digital platforms have also become a tool of the war inside Russia itself, where security services have been impersonating the ATESH partisan movement to track down people trying to assist the resistance.
Fake accounts posing as the group have appeared in chat groups of other movements, including Freedom of Russia, urging users to contact an automated bot that mimics the partisans' real handle with a slight misspelling.
The campaign follows an October 21 sabotage operation against military communications around IXcellerate, one of Moscow's largest commercial data centers, allegedly used for air-defense command traffic.
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