The sale of Starlink terminals has been permanently banned in Russia

The Russian State Duma has passed a package of amendments that completely bans the sale in Russia of equipment for foreign satellite communication systems that have not received permission to use Russian radio frequencies. The new restrictions are primarily aimed at Starlink terminals from Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

Websites offering such devices for sale will be automatically added to the registry of banned sites and blocked. 

Although the service has never officially operated in Russia, terminals have been actively imported into the country in recent years through “gray” parallel import schemes. Since April, a temporary six-month ban on the import of satellite equipment without allocated frequencies has been in effect in Russia, and the adopted law now definitively criminalizes and blocks its domestic sale. The Russian Ministry of Digital Development confirmed that the measures enforce a complete ban on the sale of equipment that operates outside of state regulation.

Industry experts note that Starlink terminals were, by default, illegal on Russian territory, as they were not allocated frequencies and the devices themselves had not undergone certification. However, Russian authorities had previously turned a blind eye to the presence and sale of such terminals on the domestic market, whereas the new law completely blocks legal opportunities for trading them via online platforms.

The Moscow Times reports on this.

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