Apple seems confident it will sell about 3.5 million iPhones in Russia and it has finally reached an agreement with Mobile TeleSystems, Russia’s largest carrier to sell the handset starting October. According to previous rumors we were expecting the iPhone 3G to enter the Russian market only in 2009.

Besides MTS, Vimpelcom and MegaFon are also considered by Apple to sell the iPhone. Currently more than 600,000 iPhones are being used unofficially in Russia and more are going to be sold by the time Apple will start to ship handsets to the country.

Russian carriers are expected to buy the iPhone for $399 from Apple and sell it for about $990. Quite a price! Not the usual affordable price Apple has been promoting but cheaper than any unlocked iPhone brought over from abroad.