Your options and their risks
The country list is on the Supported Regions Policy page (checked 22 October 2026): it says that use of the service by people physically located in an unsupported country is not supported either. Reports of accounts from Russia being blocked since 1 October 2026 come from The Moscow Times and The Bell.
How to get a key for Claude in 5 minutes
1
Sign up
Sign up at www.ruapi.ai — with email, Google or Yandex.
2
Top up
Console → Wallet: USDT or USDC (TRC20 / BEP20 / Polygon), from 5 USDT. No USDT yet? Buy it with rubles via SBP (Faster Payments System). Cards from foreign banks (Visa / Mastercard) are accepted too; cards from Russian banks, including Mir, are not.
3
Key
Console → API Keys → Create API key — you’ll get an
sk-... string.4
Connect
The key works in two formats — pick the one your code is written for.
How much it costs and how to top up
Prices are per 1M tokens, separately for input and output. For example, claude-sonnet-5-5 costs $2.40 for input, $0.12 for cached tokens and $12 for output; claude-opus-5-5 costs $4.80, $0.24 and $24 (prices on the pricing page as of 22 October 2026; the price in your account may be lower). All Claude models and prices are on the Claude API in Russia: prices and payment page. There’s no subscription. You top up your balance whenever you need to, the same way — in USDT, and it doesn’t expire. The repeated part of the prompt is read from the cache (prompt caching) and costs many times less than regular input.FAQ
Can I pay for the Anthropic API with a Russian card?
Can I pay for the Anthropic API with a Russian card?
Not directly: Anthropic doesn’t accept Russian cards and doesn’t serve users from Russia. With RuAPI, your Russian card still comes in handy: use it to buy USDT via SBP (for example, on the P2P market in t.me/CryptoBot) and top up your balance — no foreign card needed.
Will a virtual card help?
Will a virtual card help?
It may help you pay Anthropic, but the account is still used from Russia, and Anthropic doesn’t support use from countries that aren’t on its list — the risk of a ban, together with the money you’ve paid in, remains. With a RuAPI key, you don’t need an Anthropic account at all.
Do I need a VPN?
Do I need a VPN?
No. The RuAPI website and API are reachable from Russia directly.
Is this the original Claude?
Is this the original Claude?
Yes. These are Anthropic’s original models — claude-opus-5-5, claude-sonnet-5-5, claude-haiku-5-5 and others — with no quality cuts and no substitution.
Can I try it for free?
Can I try it for free?
We usually give new users $0.05 right away to try deepseek-flash. Claude models unlock after your first top-up — from 5 USDT.
Next steps
Claude API in Russia: prices and payment
Current prices for all Claude models.
Claude Code in Russia
How to install and connect it without an Anthropic account.
Claude models
Opus, Sonnet, Haiku — which one for what.
How to buy USDT with rubles
Crypto Bot, Bybit P2P or an exchanger — three ways.