Russia proposes cutting off mobile service to phones brought from abroad unless owners register them within two weeks

Russia’s Digital Development Ministry has proposed cutting off cellular service to smartphones brought in from abroad starting in April 2027 if their owners fail to register them by IMEI number within two weeks, the Russian business news outlet RBC reported.IMEI is a unique 15-digit number assigned to every mobile device during manufacturing.The initiative, under discussion at the Digital Development Ministry, would apply to smartphones brought into Russia from abroad for personal use. Owners would have two weeks to register their phones after bringing them into the country, or carriers would disconnect the devices from the network.“This [registering] can be done on Gosuslugi within a two-week period. If registration is not completed within the established period, such devices will not be serviced on the networks,” the ministry said.The ministry said the measure aims to combat people who import smartphones into Russia one at a time to resell them.The initiative will not affect phones that were working on Russian networks before April 2027.In June, the State Duma, the lower house of Russia’s parliament, passed a second set of measures aimed at fighting fraud. It calls for creating a unified IMEI database in Russia with a “blacklist” of phones that were stolen or illegally brought into the country.At Meduza, we are committed to transparency about our use of artificial intelligence in the newsroom. The story you’re reading was written by one of our living, breathing journalists and translated from Russian using an AI model configured to follow our strict editorial standards. This translation process is the result of extensive testing and refinements to ensure our English-language coverage is timely and accurate. A Meduza editor reviews every draft before publication.If you find any errors in this translation, please contact us at [email protected].To read Meduza’s exclusive content in English, please subscribe to our newsletter.