Russia Data Centers Must Reserve 10% of Capacity, Putin Orders

Russia data centers run by private companies must set aside 10% of their floor space and computing capacity for state use, under a decree President Vladimir Putin signed on November 2, 2026. Operators have 10 days to reserve the space, and they must hand it over within 24 hours whenever a new government subcommission asks for it.

The decree, published on Russia’s official legal information portal, says the move is an urgent response to “unfriendly actions of some foreign states” and is meant to keep online services owned by Russian citizens and companies running, Interfax reported. It takes effect on the day of publication.

What the decree requires from Russia data centers

The rule applies to every data center in Russia that is not owned by a federal or regional government body, a municipality or a state enterprise. The reserved 10% does not sit idle: operators can keep using it as normal until the state calls on it. The main points are:

• Reserve 10% of available floor space and capacity within 10 days.
• Provide the reserved capacity within one day of a subcommission decision.
• Charge no more than a maximum fee that the subcommission will set.
• Data centers abroad may be used temporarily, but only with a subcommission decision approved by the FSB security service.

The government must now form a subcommission on the uninterrupted operation of IT and communications facilities under its digital development commission. The Ministry of Digital Development will take stock of free space and capacity at privately owned data centers and set mandatory reliability requirements for the owners of online services.

Why Russia is moving now

The order follows a wave of Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian computing facilities in October. Data centers belonging to three companies were hit, according to Interfax. Yandex said three of its sites were damaged and two had to be shut down, which caused outages across its own services and other parts of the Russian internet. We covered the earlier strike that crippled a major Yandex data center. Facilities run by VK and Sberbank were also targeted, though their services kept working.

The decree effectively turns private capacity into an emergency backup pool. If a government or commercial service loses a site to an attack, the state can move it onto reserved space at another operator within a day, Reuters reported. State news agency RIA Novosti also said on Monday that Rostelecom is working on underground data centers.

What it means for operators and users

For data center companies, the order means less capacity to sell freely at a time when demand for computing power is high worldwide, as shown by deals like Oracle’s $20 billion fundraising for AI data centers. Operators will also have to follow price limits set by the state for the reserved share.

For ordinary users, the goal is fewer long outages when a facility is hit. The digital front of the war has been widening on both sides, from data centers to consumer apps, as seen when air raid alert apps in Ukraine and Russia were hacked in recent days. How quickly the new subcommission can actually move services between sites remains to be seen.