Russians hammering an ancient iPad may only matter to other Russians - and probably not even to them

A seemingly civilian Russian man has smashed an iPad probably older than his pre-teen son to somehow prove that the country will not fear the sanctions induced by its leader's choice to go war in Ukraine.

There is something symbolic about a Russian man taking an actual hammer to what is demonstrably an example of American enterprise. But the symbol the unnamed man wanted to give was that sanctions would not deter Russia.

He also cut his finger on the iPad's glass. There is also the issue that smashing an iPad, or any similar battery-powered electronic device, with a hammer can break the battery and start a fire. Fortunately, this one didn't, though.

The tweet's video is reportedly taken from Russian state television, relayed on Twitter by staff from BBC Monitoring. It's not clear where the clip originated, nor when it was first aired. Also not clear is if the man is saying all this independently, or for the purposes of propaganda.

However, it has clearly been produced since the Russian invasion of the Ukraine, and since Apple ceased selling any hardware in the country.

The man protesting that he can live without Apple's "nice pretty things," could well be correct, too. Since it appears the iPad he and his smash up either 11 years or 12 years old.

The unnamed man would face the same problem if he were a Dell user, or a DirecTV subscriber, as these companies have also stopped operating in Russia. Nobody's going to watch a Dell monitor being beaten, or a DirecTV dish tossed out an eighth story window, though.

The video isn't standing up to Apple in the sense of denying the company any money, at least until he wants to replace the iPad. In which case he can currently face dramatic price hikes in the country being applied by his countrymen, and find that regular Apple resellers are closed.