Issue with iCloud billing when switching countries/regions

I moved between countries. Due to some apps I am required to use, I had to change regions to install them. Well, now iCloud is being renewed, and it fails because it uses my current credit card information, which is based on the previous country. Those cards are valid and support the old ($) and new (EUR) currencies, but Apple insists on using the new country as the billing address because of the region change. And so the mismatch fails the billing. I have no credit card in the new country yet (it takes time for the bank to update that, dealing with foreign and inter-country offices, and stuff). The other option is PayPal, which doesn't work for other reasons, and I can't create a new account because it gives a bogus error. So right now, I can't pay for iCloud despite having credit cards that pretty much all vendors on earth accept. And I have no clear ETA for when I will have a specific credit card with billing updated to the new country.

I am backuping all my pictures and videos in urgency, I guess, before the files get deleted from iCloud once it decides to switch to the free iCloud storage size (only 5 GiB).

Is it really how it is supposed to work? We can't use international credit cards with Apple services? And you have to backup everything as part of a switch? OneDrive or Google Drive for the win, I guess. It seems idiotic, but I guess that's the reliable way forward. Any other solutions?