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Наталя ХандусенкоAI Eng
18 September 2026, 13:06
2026-09-18
UPD Instead of an answer — a ban: Meta blocked the account of a Ukrainian IT entrepreneur after his request about restrictions on Muse models in Ukraine
Yar Birzul, founder of ARCHON and co-founder of the KOLO Foundation, discovered that Meta Corporation is covertly blocking access to its latest developer tools — Muse Code and Muse Spark 1.3 models — for users with Ukrainian IP addresses. At the same time, these services work without any problems in European countries.
The day after the Internet announcement, Meta opened access to Muse Spark 1.3 and Contributor for Ukrainians.
Yar Birzul, founder of ARCHON and co-founder of the KOLO Foundation, discovered that Meta Corporation is covertly blocking access to its latest developer tools — Muse Code and Muse Spark 1.3 models — for users with Ukrainian IP addresses. At the same time, these services work without any problems in European countries.
The day after the Internet announcement, Meta opened access to Muse Spark 1.3 and Contributor for Ukrainians.
Reference
Muse Code was first released in early August 2026 with the release of Muse Spark 1.2. Muse Spark 1.3 officially launched on September 2, 2026. For Europe, these tools became fully available directly on the day of the global launch, September 2, 2026 (via the paid Meta Model API and Muse Code console client).
According to Yar Birzul , developers from Ukraine found themselves on an unequal footing, even though they pay the full subscription fee for the Model API.
"I made a request to Meta, to all the public channels I found. I tested all the European countries - there are no such restrictions there. It seems that someone decided not to bother with the occupied territories that are under sanctions, and simply faked a block of the entire country," Birzul told dev.ua.
When trying to log in to the developer portal https://dev.meta.ai/ from a Ukrainian IP address, the message "Model API isn't available in your country yet" is displayed. In the console interface (CLI), the Muse Code tool gives an error about lack of access to Muse Spark 1.3 models if the request is made without using a VPN.
In his official appeal to Meta's support and policy department, Birzul emphasized that such actions contradict the company's public policy (Geographic Use Policy). Officially, Meta's sanctions restrictions apply only to the temporarily occupied territories of Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk regions, but not to the government-controlled territory of Ukraine and Kyiv.
An attempt to obtain a public explanation ended with the sudden blocking of the entrepreneur's profile.
"The guys are working impressively. I submitted a request to Meta about the unavailability of Muse Code and Muse Spark 1.3 models throughout Ukraine... In response, they blocked my account," Birzul ironically says.
Only after an appeal was the account restored, but Meta never provided an answer regarding the geoblocking of the models.
The specialist notes that although Ukrainian IT professionals can use indirect methods — for example, resellers like OpenRouter with payment via API or VPN — this does not replace a full-fledged native subscription.
The main goal of the appeal is to attract the attention of the community and force Meta to either fix these restrictions in its official policy or cancel them for the territories controlled by Ukraine.
"Furthermore, I would like to draw attention to the problem of making Meta models officially available to Ukrainians. The situation is extremely strange," the KOLO co-founder concluded.
UPDATE 09/18/2026 1:00 PM
Today, September 18, Yar Birzul announced that Meta has unlocked Muse Spark 1.3 and Contributor for Ukraine.
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