The authors of draft law on autonomy for Russian internet claimed very seriously that the adoption of this law would not entail any expenditure for Russian state budget. But auditors from Russian Accounts Chamber have different opinion based on their own calculations. They believe realization of this law would entail budgetary expenditures, prices rising and as negative consequence speed up inflation.
In other words implementation of the draft law on national security for Russian segment of internet would be very costly for state budget and certainly for communication operators – the main subject of regulation. In order to comply with new law communication operators would have allocate significant monetary funds for setting necessary facilities, which could be not necessary for them, instead of allocate those funds on modernisation and development.
The auditors also have underlined that the draft law provides communication operators with special equipment for compliance with its provisions. Such equipment is to be provided by Russian internet watchdog Roskomnadzor (RKN) for free, but the Russian state budget does not provide allocation of monetary funds for such purposes within next three years. It could mean that the communication operators could be forced to buy such equipment at their own expense.
The one of the authors of draft law stated that there is allocated about 20 bln Roubles for implementation of this draft law. The draft law has been adopted in first reading. Now it should be more clearly provided in the draft law who should bear liability in a case of facility failures. What concerns the threats to Russian internet, the list of such threats is closed, i.e. all possible threats, the draft law aims to, are listed therein.