Russian government officials have ditched the iPad in favor of Samsung-made tablets according to a recent report. The move was supposedly made to “ensure tighter security.”

Russia’s telecoms minister Nikolai Nikiforov notes that Russian officials switched over to Samsung tablets “not so long ago,” and noted that the new tablets are “specially protected devices that can be used to work with confidential information.”

He added that:

“Some of the information at government meetings is confidential in nature and these devices fully meet these demands and have gone through the strictest system of certification.”

He also insisted that the move was unrelated to clamping down on U.S. technology in response to Western sanctions imposed over its takeover of Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula. He did, however, say that:

“American special services… will significantly increase the volume of information they intercept (which) of course causes serious concern to many governmental clients. This obviously orientates Russian clients, primarily state ones, to be very choosy about their partners in IT.”

In this way, Nikiforov says that South Korean firms such as Samsung are interesting to Russia.

This isn’t the first time that Apple devices have been barred in a governmental capacity. In November last year, iPhones were banned from German parliament, due to a supposed lack of necessary encryption software. iPads were banned from the UK’s No. 10 Downing Street for similar reasons, while President Obama is reportedly stuck using a BlackBerry, despite being an obvious Apple fan.

• SourceBusiness Insider