Russia has once again delayed its plans to charge mobile internet users for VPN traffic. On May 21, industry insiders told Kommersant and RBC that full implementation probably won’t occur until after the State Duma and regional elections slated for late September. In March, the Digital Development Ministry announced that telecom operators would start billing customers exceeding 15 gigabytes of international data usage per month; initially set for May 1, the rollout was later pushed to June 1 after providers struggled to monitor VPN usage and establish proper billing systems. An RBC source noted that creating a fully functional system for charging international data traffic would require another three to four months.
These repeated postponements underscore how technically challenging it is to accurately identify and measure VPN traffic on a large scale — a hurdle Russian regulators have faced ever since proposing this surcharge as part of a wider regulatory crackdown announced in March. Since Russia began blocking Western social media platforms and independent news outlets, including The Moscow Times, following its 2022 invasion of Ukraine, VPN adoption has skyrocketed among locals; government-imposed speed restrictions on Telegram and WhatsApp have further fueled this trend. The timing of this latest delay, just ahead of elections, also prompts speculation that authorities might be wary of the political fallout that could arise from limiting a tool now relied upon by tens of millions of Russians in their everyday lives.
The Moscow Times (Original sources: Kommersant / RBC)