In 2026, Russia’s Roskomnadzor is considering the launch of a new internet traffic filtering mechanism based on machine learning and AI – the Kremlin’s latest step toward deepening digital isolation. The project is already allocated $29.2 million, despite a chronic budget deficit and rising costs of maintaining existing control infrastructure.
The initiative aims at stricter and more targeted content blocking: from automatic detection of “mirror” sites of banned resources to neutralizing VPN services and analyzing traffic by content – including text, images, video, and audio. This represents a shift from crude mass blocking to precision filtering, which makes it significantly harder to circumvent restrictions and intensifies persecution of online dissenters and critics of the regime.
Technically, the system will rely on Russia’s already deployed DPI solutions, supplemented with AI modules to analyze patterns and anomalies in real time, including in encrypted traffic. Authorities already use the “Oculus” and “Vepr” systems, which in 2025 blocked 1.289 million resources and daily restricted access to 5,500 addresses. However, their effectiveness is only about 60% and requires ever-increasing computational resources.
The new initiative demonstrates the Kremlin’s desire not merely to tighten censorship but to establish total control over the information space. At the same time, financial constraints and high technological complexity raise doubts about Moscow’s ability to fully implement these plans.
