Vladimir Putin has signed a decree ordering commercial operators to maintain a Russia data centre reserve of 10% of their floor space and capacity, while temporarily allowing services to use foreign server hosting after physical strikes and digital disruptions hit domestic technological facilities on Monday.
Key points
- Commercial server farms in Russia must allocate 10% of their existing capacity and floor space within 10 days of publication.
- A cabinet subcommission can order the release of reserved capacity on 24 hours of notice to support domestic services.
- Service fees charged for requisitioned capacity will be capped at rates fixed by state regulators.
- The Kremlin has temporarily permitted Russian online services to run on foreign infrastructure after strikes targeted Yandex sites.
The 10% domestic reserve mandate
The presidential order imposes capacity obligations across the commercial hosting sector. Under the terms of the signed decree, non-government data centre owners have no more than 10 days from its entry into force to set aside 10% of their total floor space and technical capacity for Russian information resources.
The requirement applies directly to facilities operating within the Russian Federation. Calculations must be based on existing operational floor space and current power and computing capacity rather than future development plans.
State-run entities are exempt from the order. The decree explicitly excludes data centres owned by federal, regional, or municipal government bodies, as well as state or municipal unitary enterprises and public institutions. The burden falls solely on private companies and commercial colocation providers.
According to text published on Russia’s official legal-publication portal, the decree took effect on 2 November 2026, the day it was signed. That timeline leaves commercial site owners with a tight deadline to calculate their baselines and ringfence room across their server halls.
Operators are not required to leave the reserved halls empty while waiting for state instructions. Facilities may continue using the designated capacity for their regular commercial clients until an official order demands its release.
Emergency powers and 24-hour transfers
The authority to activate the reserved capacity sits with a new regulatory body. Ministers have been ordered to establish the oversight subcommission within the cabinet body responsible for digital development and information technology policy, according to a Kremlin announcement.
The subcommission is responsible for safeguarding the uninterrupted operation of the country’s information technology and communications facilities. When this panel decides that specific digital services require emergency hosting, it will issue a formal release instruction to site owners.
Once that decision is issued, operators must provide the floor space and capacity within 24 hours. The transferred resources will be allocated to support digital infrastructure owned by Russian citizens or Russian corporate entities.
The decree’s preamble frames the intervention as an urgent, temporary measure designed to counter unfriendly actions by foreign nations. It sets up an emergency reallocation pipeline that bypasses regular commercial procurement cycles.
State authorities will also regulate commercial pricing during activations. The decree stipulates that fees charged by operators for delivering reserved space and power cannot exceed a maximum ceiling established by the subcommission. Providers will not be permitted to raise tariffs to commercial surge rates when responding to official transfer orders.
Temporary shift to foreign computing capacity
Alongside the domestic reservation requirements, the decree introduces an exception to Russia’s data sovereignty rules. A separate provision permits the temporary use of computing capacity located outside Russia to maintain the operation of domestic information resources.
The allowance marks a practical departure from Moscow’s longstanding regulatory campaign to force all domestic data processing within national borders. For years, Russian internet law has penalised firms that host domestic user data on foreign servers.
The policy shift comes after infrastructure disruptions. Bloomberg reported that the decision to permit foreign data centre use followed a series of Ukrainian attacks that targeted facilities owned by Russian technology giant Yandex.
The Kremlin decree categorises the permission as a temporary measure connected to hostile foreign actions. To bring the foreign hosting rules into effect, the Russian government must draft and approve formal procedural guidelines governing which companies may move workloads abroad and under what technical conditions.
Inventories and infrastructure standards
The order assigns enforcement tasks to the Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media. The ministry has been ordered to conduct an inventory of all unused floor space and spare computing capacity across commercial facilities in Russia.
The inventory uses the same scope as the reservation rules, covering sites owned by non-government entities while leaving out municipal and federal bodies. Officials will catalogue idle server racks, vacant data halls, and unallocated power feeds to determine the exact size of Russia’s commercial backup buffer.
The ministry must also establish mandatory standards for digital asset owners. Officials will approve binding operational rules regarding the reliability and uninterrupted performance of critical information resources.
These technical demands arrive as data centre resilience faces intense political scrutiny across Europe. Hosting facilities have experienced growing strain from energy rationing and regulatory intervention, with Norway data centres facing freeze calls as public officials examine the pressure that large server farms place on national power supplies.
Physical security around server hubs has also become a priority for European security services. In northern Europe, authorities have stepped up scrutiny of critical sites, following a Google data centre investigation opened by Finnish police after damage was reported at a facility in Muhos.
What happens next
Commercial hosting providers in Russia have until 12 November 2026 to complete technical assessments and set aside 10% of their operational capacity. Over the same period, the Ministry of Digital Development will begin audits of spare commercial space.
The Russian cabinet must now publish the subcommission’s operating statute, set the price caps for requisitioned services, and issue the regulatory procedure for using foreign computing sites. Commercial operators will continue serving regular clients on reserved racks until the subcommission issues its first 24-hour transfer orders.
