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Short answer: Claude Code itself is free, and you can install it from Russia via npm. What doesn’t work is the Anthropic account: Russia is not on the list of supported countries, and since 1 October 2026 accounts from Russia are once again being blocked en masse. So Claude Code is connected to an API gateway instead: set two environment variables and it works without a VPN, without an Anthropic account or subscription, and you pay in USDT only for the tokens you use.

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Does Claude Code work in Russia

The country list is on the Supported Regions Policy page (checked 22 October 2026): “Any country or region not listed is unsupported”, and Russia is not on the list. The bans are reported by The Moscow Times and The Bell, October 2026.

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How to install Claude Code in Russia

1

Node.js 22 or newer

Check your version with node --version. If you don’t have Node.js or your version is older, install the LTS version from nodejs.org.
2

Install via npm

The command is the same on macOS, Linux and Windows (PowerShell). The official installer from claude.ai may not open from Russia — npm gives you the same result.

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How to connect Claude Code without an Anthropic account

1

RuAPI key

Sign up at www.ruapi.ai (with email, Google or Yandex), top up your balance, and in the Console open API Keys → Create API key — you’ll get an sk-... string.
2

Address and key in settings.json

Open ~/.claude/settings.json (Windows: %USERPROFILE%\.claude\settings.json; if the file doesn’t exist, create it) and add:
The address goes without /v1 at the end — Claude Code adds /v1/messages itself.
3

Launch

Open a new terminal, go to your project folder and run claude. You don’t need to sign in to an Anthropic account. The request will show up in the RuAPI Console → Usage Logs.
Detailed setup — models for /model opus and /model haiku, environment variables instead of the file, Windows — is in the guide How to connect Claude Code to RuAPI.

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How to pay for Claude Code in Russia

You don’t need a subscription: you pay only for the tokens Claude Code uses.
  • USDT or USDC on TRC20, BEP20 or Polygon, from 5 USDT — no foreign card needed. If you don’t have USDT yet, you can buy it with rubles via SBP (Faster Payments System): step-by-step guide; the first time takes 15–30 minutes.
  • Cards from foreign banks (Visa / Mastercard) are accepted too. Cards from Russian banks, including Mir, are not.
  • Prompt caching works: Claude Code connects through the native Anthropic API, so the context it re-sends at every step costs at least 10 times less than regular input.
How to spend less: How to cut your Claude Code and Cline bill.

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Errors and what to do about them

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”Unable to connect to Anthropic services”: how to fix it

This is a known Claude Code issue (GitHub issue): in some versions it calls api.anthropic.com on first launch regardless of your ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL. The workaround is described in that issue, and users confirm it in another discussion: mark the first launch as completed:
  1. Close Claude Code.
  2. Open ~/.claude.json (Windows: %USERPROFILE%\.claude.json) — this is a different file, not settings.json.
  3. Add the line "hasCompletedOnboarding": true inside the curly braces. If the file is empty or doesn’t exist, its contents should be:
    If the file already has other lines, add this one with a comma, otherwise the JSON will break.
  4. Run claude again.

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”Invalid API key”: check where requests go and with which key

Inside Claude Code, run /status and look at two lines:
  • Anthropic base URL should show https://www.ruapi.ai. If this line is missing, ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL didn’t reach Claude Code, and requests are going to Anthropic.
  • Auth token should name ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN. If you see a Login method line with a claude.ai account instead, the RuAPI key wasn’t picked up.
Then check which Anthropic variables are set on your system:
  • You should see ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL=https://www.ruapi.ai.
  • If there’s an ANTHROPIC_API_KEY with an old key, remove it (or put the RuAPI key in it). It’s better to keep the RuAPI key in ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN: that way Claude Code doesn’t ask whether to use the key.
  • The command won’t show variables from settings.json — check the file itself too. If the same variable is set both in the system and in settings.json, the value from settings.json wins.
  • If the key is in ANTHROPIC_API_KEY, Claude Code asks once whether to use it; if you answered “no” back then, the key is silently ignored — turn it on in /config → Use custom API key.
Claude Code makes background calls to Anthropic’s servers — update checks, telemetry. These requests may not get through from Russia; this doesn’t affect working through RuAPI, but you can turn them off by adding the line "CLAUDE_CODE_DISABLE_NONESSENTIAL_TRAFFIC": "1" to env. This also turns off auto-update — update Claude Code with npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code@latest.
All API error codes are on the Error codes page.

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FAQ

Yes, if you connect it to RuAPI: Claude Code talks to www.ruapi.ai, and that address is reachable from Russia directly. You don’t need an Anthropic account or subscription, so account bans don’t affect you.
No. Neither for installing via npm nor for working: requests to the models go only to www.ruapi.ai.
The program itself is free, but you pay for the models. RuAPI has no subscription: you pay only for the tokens you use. We usually give new users $0.05 right away to try deepseek-flash — and you can run Claude Code on DeepSeek, which is many times cheaper than Claude.
It depends on the model and the amount of work. For example, claude-sonnet-5-5 costs $2.40 per 1M input tokens, $0.12 per 1M cached tokens and $12 per 1M output tokens (prices on the pricing page as of 22 October 2026; the price in your account may be lower). All models and prices are on the pricing page.
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.
Yes — switch between them in one click with CC Switch.

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Next steps

Claude Code in Russia — no VPN, no account

Why it’s better to connect Claude Code through a gateway from Russia.

Detailed Claude Code setup

Models, environment variables, Windows.

Claude Code on DeepSeek

The same Claude Code — many times cheaper.

How to buy USDT with rubles

Crypto Bot, Bybit P2P or an exchanger — three ways.