Russia’s latest anti-fraud push is starting to look less like a scalpel and more like a sledgehammer aimed at the country’s digital infrastructure and its citizens abroad.
At the heart of the plan is a sweeping reclassification of machine-to-machine (M2M) SIMs and a crackdown on eSIMs. Kommersant reports the government is weighing a package that would carve out M2M SIM cards as a “distinct category,” slap on extra ID requirements, and outright “bar[] voice calls and SMS messages from those cards,” while also “prohibiting Russian citizens from registering eSIMs while abroad.”1 The same contours are echoed elsewhere: authorities want to “separate M2M SIM cards into a separate category, introduce additional identification for their users, and also ban voice calls and SMS messages,” and “ban the registration of eSIMs from abroad.”3
Supporters inside the system frame this as long-overdue hygiene in a shady niche of the telecom market. The M2M segment “operates in a gray zone and is being exploited for spam calling,” with dealers even selling regular voice SIMs as M2M to dodge passport-based registration, according to industry sources and experts cited in the coverage.1, 3 Another outlet bluntly notes that these cards “are vulnerable to exploitation by scammers for purposes like spam calls.”2
Opposition-leaning media, however, see something bigger than fraud control. Novaya Gazeta Europe stresses that eSIMs can be used “to bypass blocks,” making a foreign-registration ban look a lot like a censorship tool dressed up as consumer protection.2 The Insider underscores the security-state backstory: eSIM’s rollout in Russia was long “held back due to the position of the FSB,” with mass use only taking off from 2019–2020 and reaching around 3 million users by mid‑2023.3
In other words, both sides agree the IoT SIM market is messy. The fight is over whether Moscow is cleaning it up—or quietly tightening the screws on digital mobility and anonymity.