The Roskomnadzor center responsible for internet blocking may spend up to half of its annual profit on new equipment

Original source

The Roskomnadzor center responsible for internet blocking may spend up to half of its annual profit on new equipment

The Ministry of Digital Development wants to allow Roskomnadzor’s Federal State Unitary Enterprise “Main Radio Frequency Center” not to transfer up to 50% of its 2025 profit to the state budget, as is currently required, and instead spend that money on purchasing new equipment. The corresponding draft government resolution was found by Verstka.

“Not to provide for the transfer to the federal budget of part of the enterprise’s profit, on the condition that the freed-up part of the profit is directed toward financing measures related to the acquisition of radio-monitoring equipment for the needs of the radio-frequency service,” the document says.

The exact equipment in question is not specified. Under the rules for radio monitoring in Russia, it may include, among other things, equipment for locating sources that create impermissible radio interference, as well as devices that use radio frequencies for unintended purposes.

The Ministry of Digital Development’s draft proposes partially suspending, for the Main Radio Frequency Center, the effect of the “Rules for developing and approving activity programs and determining the part of the profit of federal state unitary enterprises subject to transfer to the federal budget.” Specifically, the obligation to pay “at least 50% of adjusted profit” for 2025.

How much profit the Main Radio Frequency Center made last year is unknown; the center did not publish financial statements for that period. The enterprise’s net profit for 2024 amounted to more than 1 billion rubles.

🟦Kommersant earlier wrote that in 2025 Roskomnadzor planned to spend 125 million rubles on creating a Unified Radio Frequency Spectrum Monitoring System, which could be used to monitor blocked websites. Roskomnadzor denied this.

🟦The Main Radio Frequency Center is known for having been involved in blocking VPNs, monitoring protest sentiment on social networks and in the media, and preparing reports for designating Russians as “foreign agents.”

😘 Subscribe to @svobodnieslova and donate — we work thanks to you

Internet Blockers Get Their Equipment Money

A Roskomnadzor center may keep up to half its profit for new equipment.

Control outranked the budget again.