When Rostelecom runs the State Cloud and billions of rubles just vanish into empty virtual servers
The Accounts Chamber discovered that billions spent on Russia's unified government cloud platform went straight into idle servers and contractor pockets, proving once again that a monopoly is terrible at everything except collecting cash.
Between 2023 and late 2026, the Ministry of Digital Development ordered cloud services worth a staggering 37.7 billion rubles for various federal agencies. The sole provider for this massive digital feast was Rostelecom, which immediately raised eyebrows among auditors regarding fair competition laws. While market prices for certain computing resources elsewhere turned out to be cheaper, the state preferred keeping all its digital eggs in one monolithic basket.
Instead of doing the heavy lifting itself, Rostelecom quietly outsourced the actual work to its subsidiaries and affiliated companies, completely ignoring contract clauses requiring it to handle at least 5% of the workload independently. Meanwhile, the technical requirements demanded pristine 24/7 availability with virtually zero downtime. Naturally, reality had other plans, and service levels frequently fell short of expectations.
Faced with systemic slip-ups, the Ministry of Digital Development issued penalty claims totaling 1.35 billion rubles against the telecom giant, yet not a single ruble was paid back voluntarily. While a few minor sums were clawed back through endless court battles, hundreds of millions in penalties remain stuck in legal limbo or ignored entirely. To make matters worse, an audit of four major state consumers revealed that about 2.7 billion rubles went toward virtual resources that sat mostly empty, with processor utilization lingering down at a sad 15%.
The ministry gamely defended the underutilized hardware by blaming seasonal demand, testing phases, and safety margins for future systems. Meanwhile, independent experts point out that the cozy single-supplier model leaves the government completely trapped because switching providers would cost a fortune and take ages.
When a state infrastructure project becomes so entangled with a single commercial giant that even multi-million-dollar fines bounce off like rubber bullets, it stops being a technological initiative and turns into an expensive digital hostage situation.
Source: RBC
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