Online safety & content laws in Russia (2026)
Online safety rules in Russia: heavy restriction.
Russia operates one of the world's most restrictive internet regimes, combining centralized traffic-control infrastructure (DPI, a national DNS) with sweeping content-blocking, platform-liability and surveillance laws administered by Roskomnadzor. Rather than a single online-safety statute, the state uses overlapping censorship laws to block foreign platforms (YouTube, WhatsApp, Telegram features), throttle traffic, ban VPNs, and push users toward the state-controlled MAX messenger. Through 2025-2026 controls escalated sharply, including full blocking of WhatsApp and YouTube in February 2026 and new authority to isolate or reroute traffic from March 2026.
Legal framework
Layered state-control regime centered on Roskomnadzor: the 2019 'Sovereign Internet' Law (No. 90-FZ), the 2021 social-media 'self-censorship' law and 'landing law' (No. 236-FZ) on foreign internet companies, the broad 'extremist'/'undesirable' content blocking framework, and the July 2025 amendments penalizing searches for 'extremist' content and VPN promotion.
Key points: internet & online safety in Russia
Sovereign Internet infrastructure
The 2019 'Sovereign Internet' Law requires telecom operators to install Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) equipment and builds a national DNS, giving the state centralized power to manage, filter and isolate Russian internet traffic. A November 2025 government decree expanded Roskomnadzor's authority to isolate or reroute domestic traffic from March 1, 2026, on grounds of 'specific threats.'
Mass content blocking by Roskomnadzor
Roskomnadzor blocks tens of thousands of resources for vaguely defined categories ('extremist activity,' 'separatism,' protest organizing, 'undesirable organizations'). In the first half of 2025 it limited access to more than 15,000 internet resources, and 2025 blocking volumes rose sharply year-on-year.
Platform-liability ('self-censorship' and 'landing' laws)
A law in force since February 2021 requires platforms with over 500,000 daily Russian users to proactively detect and remove broadly defined prohibited content, with fines up to 4 million rubles for non-compliance. The 2021 'landing law' (No. 236-FZ) forces major foreign internet firms to open local offices and register with Roskomnadzor as a liaison/enforcement point.
Criminalization of searches and VPN promotion (2025)
A law signed by Putin on July 31, 2025 (effective September 1, 2025), adding articles to the Code of Administrative Offences, fines individuals 3,000-5,000 rubles for deliberately searching for 'extremist' material (including via VPN) and imposes fines up to 80,000 rubles (individuals) and 500,000 rubles (organizations) for advertising VPN services.
Blocking of foreign platforms and VPNs
Audio/video calls on Telegram and WhatsApp were blocked in August 2025; on February 11, 2026 WhatsApp and YouTube were fully blocked by removing their domains from the National DNS. By February 2026 Roskomnadzor reported blocking 469 VPN services, while Apple and Google removed hundreds of VPN apps from their Russian stores on demand.
State-controlled messenger and data access
Authorities are driving WhatsApp's ~100 million Russian users toward MAX, a state-controlled 'super-app' for messaging, payments and government services that is not end-to-end encrypted and shares user data with Russian authorities, deepening surveillance capacity.
Timeline of decisions
- Enforcement
- Enforcement
- EnforcementYouTube Throttled to Near-Unusable Speeds Nationwide
Roskomnadzor, without a formal ban announcement, throttled YouTube to 128 kbps on mobile and 512 kbps on QUIC using state-mandated DPI hardware targeting Google's SNI tags, sufficient only for 240p video. YouTube's share of Russian internet traffic collapsed from 43 % before throttling to 6-12 % by January 2025, the most consequential use of sovereign-internet infrastructure since its installation.
Human Rights Watch
- DecisionMoscow Court Designates Meta 'Extremist'; Facebook and Instagram Permanently Blocked
Tverskoy District Court of Moscow, on a Prosecutor General petition backed by Roskomnadzor and the FSB, declared Meta Platforms an extremist organisation and banned all its activities in Russia. Facebook had been blocked on 4 March and Instagram on 14 March 2022 immediately after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the largest social-media censorship event in Russian internet history.
Wikipedia (cites Moscow court record)
- EnforcementRoskomnadzor Throttles Twitter for Refusing Content Takedowns
Roskomnadzor throttled Twitter to 10 % of normal speed on all mobile networks and 50 % on desktop, citing Twitter's failure to delete 3,000+ items (CSAM, drug promotion, pro-suicide content). The action accidentally throttled Kremlin.ru and the State Duma website due to shared t.co shortlinks, a public demonstration of the risks and limits of DPI-based enforcement.
Human Rights Watch
- LawSovereign Internet Law (Federal Law No. 90-FZ) Enters Into Force
Signed by Putin on 1 May 2019, amendments to Federal Laws 149-FZ and 126-FZ (On Communications) came into force requiring all ISPs to install Roskomnadzor-funded DPI hardware, connect to a national DNS, and route traffic via state-controlled exchange points. The law granted Roskomnadzor authority to centralise routing control 'in a crisis', creating the technical backbone for an autonomous RuNet.
Internet Society
- LawFederal Law No. 276-FZ: VPNs and Anonymisers Must Block Prohibited Sites
Signed into law, Federal Law No. 276-FZ required VPN providers, anonymisers, and proxy services to connect to Roskomnadzor's registry and block access to prohibited resources, or face blocking themselves. It also criminalised publishing instructions on circumventing internet filtering, directly targeting civil-society bypass tools.
Wikipedia (cites State Duma legislative record)
- LawBlogger Registration Law (Federal Law No. 97-FZ) Takes Effect
Bloggers with daily audiences exceeding 3,000 readers were required to register with Roskomnadzor, disclose their real identity, and comply with mass-media obligations, effectively ending anonymous political blogging. The law was repealed in 2017 after proving largely unenforceable, but its chilling effect on independent online commentary was significant.
Stanford WiLMAP
- EnforcementFirst Political Use of Blacklist Law: Opposition Sites Blocked During Crimea Annexation
Roskomnadzor blocked Alexei Navalny's blog, Kasparov.ru, and Grani.ru without court order under emergency provisions, citing 'calls for unlawful activity.' This was the first overt application of the 2012 blacklist architecture to suppress political speech, transforming the law from a child-safety tool into a censorship instrument.
Human Rights Watch
Sources
- internetsociety.org/resources/internet-fragmentation/russias-sovereign-internet-law/
- freedomhouse.org/country/russia/freedom-net/2025
- hrw.org/report/2025/07/30/disrupted-throttled-and-blocked/state-censorship-co
- hrw.org/news/2026/03/12/russia-digital-iron-curtain-falls-on-internet-freedom
- themoscowtimes.com/2025/11/11/after-expanding-online-control-lawmaker-insists-russia-wil
- cepa.org/article/russias-social-media-self-censorship-law-is-misguided-and-the
- article19.org/resources/russia-internet-companies-must-challenge-censorship-under-n
- meduza.io/en/news/2025/07/31/putin-signs-law-penalizing-online-searches-for-con
- bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-07-17/russia-approves-fines-for-extremist-searches
- en.zona.media/article/2026/04/07/russian_internet_censorship_2026
- bisi.org.uk/reports/russia-whatsapp-ban-digital-sovereignty-and-the-splintering-o
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Next topicOrientation, not legal advice: verify against the primary sources linked above. Last verified 23 May 2026. Methodology & how to cite · State of Technology Regulation 2026