AI regulation in Russia (2026)

Russia's first omnibus AI bill — 'On the Fundamentals of State Regulation of the Application of Artificial Intelligence Technologies' — was released for public consultation, introducing statutory AI definitions, a sovereign/national/trusted model classification requiring FSB and FSTEC security certification, and operator obligations to test systems for legal violations. If adopted as written, it enters into force September 1, 2027.

The Russian Cabinet of Ministers formally approved a list of government functions and agencies where AI tools must be actively deployed, launching a supervised experiment to use generative AI to support (not replace) civil servants under the National AI Programme 2030.

At the AI Journey 2025 international conference, President Putin directed the Government and Presidential Administration to establish a dedicated AI headquarters with binding authority to set industry tasks, control execution, and coordinate all national AI programmes — replacing the existing Analytical Center, which lacked administrative enforcement power.

Decree No. 124 substantially revised the 2019 National AI Strategy, raising the AI-adoption target in critical industries from 12% (2022) to 95% by 2030, targeting annual AI investment of RUB 850 billion, and adding explicit focus on achieving sovereignty under Western sanctions — including preferential access to medical, anonymised personal, and industrial data for domestic AI developers.

Triggered by sweeping Western technology sanctions following the invasion of Ukraine, Putin issued a decree requiring all government agencies to migrate off foreign software on critical information infrastructure by end-2024, making 'technological sovereignty' the governing lens for all subsequent Russian AI and digital policy.

A voluntary AI Code of Ethics was adopted in Moscow, signed by Sberbank, Yandex, VK, MTS, Gazprom Neft, Rosatom, Rostelecom and dozens of others; authored by the AI Alliance together with the Analytical Center under the Russian Government, it set ethical principles for AI design, deployment and use across the full lifecycle not yet covered by statute.

This law extended Russia's sandbox concept nationwide, allowing AI and digital innovations to be tested even where existing legislation would prohibit them, across healthcare, transport, finance, agriculture, construction, and other sectors — with individual sandboxes capped at three years and extendable, providing the de facto regulatory pathway for frontier AI development.

Russia's first AI-specific federal law established a special regulatory regime in Moscow, creating the country's first 'digital sandbox' to permit testing of AI technologies — including facial recognition, autonomous vehicles, and AI-assisted medical diagnostics — that fall outside existing legislation, entering into force July 1, 2020.

Russia's foundational AI policy document defined strategic goals, priority sectors (healthcare, transport, agriculture, finance, defence), implementation mechanisms, and governance structures — committing the state to eliminating the technological gap with leading AI nations and seeding the dedicated Federal Project 'Artificial Intelligence' within the national Digital Economy programme.

In a nationally televised 'open lesson' on the first day of the Russian school year, President Putin stated 'Whoever becomes the leader in AI will become the ruler of the world,' framing artificial intelligence as a matter of national security and geopolitical survival — the watershed statement that catalysed Russia's subsequent policy mobilisation and the 2019 national strategy.