Russia Plans Mandatory Passport IDs via Gosuslugi for Renting IP Addresses
Digital total control gets another upgrade as russian officials decide that paying for a cloud server with a credit card is way too private for comfort.
The russian Ministry of Digital Development is pushing server providers to force all clients to identify themselves through the state portal Gosuslugi. Under the proposed rules, every single dedicated IP address must be tied directly to a state-verified identity.
Officials claim that standard credit card payments leave too many anonymous loopholes. This digital surveillance move specifically aims to crush private VPN setups used to bypass state censorship.
Domain registrations in russian web zones already face mandatory government verification starting in 2026. Industry representatives are already counting the damage, with Nikita Tsaplin from RUVDS warning that hosters could lose between 20% and 35% of retail clients, who will simply flee to foreign infrastructure.
Foreign clients without russian citizenship face total loss of control over their rented servers and domains unless they hand administration over to local proxies.
The illusion of a free local internet continues to dissolve into state-monitored digital feudalism. Forcing every developer to register their server with secret services will only drive the tech community further offshore.
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