Operators will not be able to track data transmission via VPN

He admitted that he would have to pay for any excess of the international traffic norm.

In the international traffic of subscribers, it is impossible to single out the one that passes through the VPN in order to charge a fee for its use, Beeline CEO Sergei Anokhin said at the Telecom 2026 forum of telecom operators, Vorstka noted.

“Everyone has already seen various theses in the press about new regulation, about international traffic. This probably has the answer. What is it like - VPN is not VPN - it is international. Its control nodes, apparently, can more or less determine what’s inside - it’s like with scammers: there are always a lot of different approaches, new addresses, forwardings, so this (to isolate traffic going through the VPN - editor's note) seems to be impossible to implement. Therefore, this is a linear frontal measure that says: there is such a volume of international traffic, you have to pay extra for the rest,” Anokhin said.

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The head of Beeline said that the initiative to introduce fees for VPN did not come from the operators

He also noted that mobile operators themselves “will not offer this,” since their task is to ensure communication. However, according to Anokhin, Communications Minister Maksut Shadayev “unfairly caught all the hate.” The head of Beeline hinted that this decision was not made by the minister.

Earlier, Forbes, citing sources, reported that on Saturday, March 28, the head of the Ministry of Digital Development, Maksut Shadayev, held two meetings with businesses, at which he asked to take measures against the use of means of bypassing blocking by their clients.

In particular, the head of the Ministry of Digital Development asked telecom operators to introduce a fee for using more than 15 GB of international traffic per month on mobile networks via VPN, a source familiar with the discussion told Forbes. Another Forbes source in the telecommunications industry confirmed this, adding that this option should be operational by May 1.

Earlier, “Verstka” wrote that the support services of the operators MTS, Megafon, Beeline and T2 stated that they had no information about the introduction of fees for using VPN .

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