Roskomnadzor (RKN) is Russia's federal regulator for communications, information technology and mass media. It licenses telecom operators, registers media outlets, enforces the personal data law, and maintains the unified registry of prohibited online information that Russian ISPs must use to block websites.
What Roskomnadzor is
The name is the accepted short form of its official title, the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media. "RKN" is simply the abbreviation of that short form. It is a federal executive body that reports to the Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media, and its powers are set out in a government regulation adopted in 2009. The official site is rkn.gov.ru, mostly in Russian.
The service has a central office in Moscow and regional branches that accept filings and run inspections. Technical work — radio frequency monitoring, network monitoring and the advertising registry — is done by a subordinate state enterprise, the General Radio Frequency Centre (GRFC).
For anyone outside Russia, the practical point is that RKN is the single agency sitting at the intersection of three things a website owner cares about: whether Russian users can reach the site, how their personal data must be handled, and how advertising shown to them must be labelled.
What RKN does
- Telecoms. Licensing of communications services, supervision of operators and radio frequencies, and checking that operators actually enforce access restrictions.
- Media. Registration of media outlets, including online publications. For an ordinary website registration is voluntary.
- Personal data. RKN is the data protection authority under Federal Law No. 152-FZ. It keeps a registry of data controllers ("operators"), inspects them and receives breach notifications.
- Online content. It maintains the unified registry of prohibited information, lists messaging services, foreign platforms with a large Russian audience and bloggers with more than 10,000 followers.
- Online advertising. It operates ERIR, the unified registry of internet advertising, where every ad shown to Russian users is recorded with its erid token.
Note that RKN often does not make the underlying decision. Courts and specialised agencies — the Interior Ministry, the consumer protection agency, the tax service, the Prosecutor General's Office — decide that specific content is illegal; RKN adds the entry to the registry and makes sure operators comply. The legal basis is Articles 15.1–15.3 of Federal Law No. 149-FZ on Information.
Registries RKN maintains
| Registry | What it contains | Who it affects |
|---|---|---|
| Unified registry of prohibited information | Domains, page URLs and IP addresses carrying content banned in Russia | Site owners, hosting providers, ISPs |
| Registry of personal data operators | Companies that notified RKN that they process personal data | Any business collecting data from people in Russia |
| Registry of information dissemination organisers | Messengers, email and social services | Communication platforms |
| List of foreign online companies | Foreign platforms with a daily Russian audience above 500,000 users (Law No. 236-FZ) | Large international services |
| List of personal pages | Blogger accounts with more than 10,000 followers, in force since 1 November 2024 | Creators and advertisers |
| ERIR | Records of online ads and their erid identifiers | Advertisers, agencies, publishers |
| Registry of hosting providers | Hosting companies serving customers in Russia | Hosts and their clients |
How RKN blocking works
- A court or an authorised agency rules that content on a specific page is illegal.
- RKN adds the domain, URL or IP address to the registry and notifies the hosting provider.
- The host has one day to inform the site owner, and the owner has one day to remove the content.
- If the content stays up, the host must restrict access; if it does not, the address goes into the list distributed to ISPs.
- ISPs block the resource. Users see a stub page from their provider citing Law 149-FZ, or a plain connection error.
Since the 2019 "sovereign internet" law, operators also run deep packet inspection equipment known as TSPU, centrally managed through a monitoring centre at the GRFC. That is why a block does not always look like a stub page: connections may simply time out or be reset. The article How Roskomnadzor blocking works covers the stages and filtering methods in detail. This guide does not cover ways around restrictions — only how the mechanism works and what an owner can do about it.
A block is not always about your own content. When an IP address is blocked, every site sharing that address goes dark with it. In 2018, the attempt to block Telegram took down subnets of major cloud providers and with them many unrelated sites. If your site sits on shared hosting or a CDN, the neighbours matter.
What RKN means for a website owner outside Russia
Reachability for Russian users
Russian law applies to how a site is delivered to users inside Russia, wherever the server is. If a page ends up in the registry, Russian ISPs block it regardless of where it is hosted. The practical steps — confirming the entry, removing the material or moving to a clean IP, contacting RKN — are in Site blocked in Russia: a guide for owners.
Personal data and localisation
If you collect personal data from people in Russia, 152-FZ treats you as a data operator. Part 5 of Article 18 of Law 152-FZ requires personal data of Russian citizens to be recorded and stored in databases located in Russia, and since 1 September 2022 breaches must be reported to RKN within 24 hours, with investigation results within 72 hours. The notification process is described in RKN registry of personal data operators, and hosting options in Russian hosting requirements.
Advertising aimed at Russia
Ads targeted at Russian users must carry an "advertisement" label, the advertiser's details and an erid token issued by an advertising data operator, with the record passed to ERIR. See Ad marking and erid tokens for how this works.
Large platforms
A foreign service with more than 500,000 daily users from Russia falls under the "landing" law 236-FZ: it must open a branch or representative office, register an account on the RKN site and offer a feedback form for Russian users. Most websites are nowhere near that threshold.
How to check whether a site is blocked
The official lookup is blocklist.rkn.gov.ru: enter a domain, URL or IP, solve the captcha and see whether an entry exists, with its date and legal basis. The interface is in Russian only. Faster alternatives on enterno.io:
- RKN block check — checks the domain and its IP addresses against the registry, no captcha.
- Reverse IP lookup — lists other sites on the same address so you can judge collateral risk.
- HTTP headers and availability check — confirms the site responds with its own content.
From the command line (same syntax on Windows, Linux and macOS):
nslookup example.com
curl -I http://example.comRun these from a Russian network. A DNS answer that does not match your real server IP, or a 302 redirect to the provider's own page, means the ISP is enforcing a block. Timeouts that happen only on Russian networks point to TSPU filtering.
FAQ
Is Roskomnadzor a government agency?
Yes. It is a federal service within Russia's executive branch, reporting to the Ministry of Digital Development.
Can RKN block a site without a court order?
For several categories of content, yes: an authorised agency or the Prosecutor General decides and RKN lists the resource. The owner can challenge the decision in a Russian court.
Does a foreign website have to register with RKN?
Not as such. Obligations come from what you do: processing personal data of people in Russia, advertising to them, or reaching more than 500,000 Russian users a day.
Why does a blocked site open on some Russian networks but not others?
Each ISP applies the registry with its own equipment and on its own schedule, and some restrictions run through TSPU. Timing and the visible symptom vary from network to network.
What does RKN stand for?
It abbreviates "Roskomnadzor", itself the short form of the Russian name of the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media.
