SIM card, phone number, Gosuslugi, banks

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Draft: not yet checked by a lawyer

The guides below are drafts: a lawyer has not reviewed them yet. This is not legal advice.

Draft Safety

For anyone with a Russian number linked to Gosuslugi, banks and messengers, in Russia or after leaving.

A Russian number is registered to your passport, so it identifies the account owner. Hide it in Telegram and on social media.
Where possible, use a password and an authenticator app for login codes instead of SMS codes: SMS messages get intercepted, and a SIM card can be reissued.
Don't hand your SIM card, bank card or account access to other people, and don't use other people's. Since July 2025 passing on bank cards and account access is a criminal offence (art. 187 of the Criminal Code), and since 1 September 2025 you may pass your SIM card only to close relatives. Someone else's SIM does not protect you.
Never tell anyone an SMS code: not a 'bank employee', not 'Gosuslugi', not the 'FSB' on the phone. Real staff never ask for codes.

For accounts linked to civic activity, use your own foreign number and email on a foreign service, not Russian ones.
Gosuslugi: every login, IP address and device is recorded and visible to the state. You can see your own login history in your profile, in the security section.
Banks see transfers, recipients and payment comments and pass the information to the security services and Rosfinmonitoring. Donations to designated organisations from a Russian card leave a direct trace.
If you have left: the operator may end the contract if the number is not used or paid for over 6 months, and each operator has its own rules. Since November 2025, after you return from roaming or after 72 hours without activity, mobile internet and SMS on a Russian SIM card can be blocked for 24 hours; you can lift the block via the link in the operator's SMS or by calling the operator.
Since 4 August 2026 a law on a register of people who have left and are 'evading punishment' has been in force (a sentence or a 'political' ruling that has not been carried out, plus living abroad). According to OVD-Info ('extremist', 'foreign agent'), people on the register lose access to online Gosuslugi and to transfers through Russian banks' apps.
If your SIM card was seized together with the phone, restore the number at the operator with your passport so that nobody can receive login codes on it. If there is a case, discuss this with a lawyer first.

Don't use other people's SIM cards, documents or Gosuslugi accounts, and don't lend your own.
Don't buy SIM cards 'without a passport' from strangers.
Don't keep screenshots and SMS about transfers to designated organisations on your phone.
If a case has been opened, a report drawn up or your phone seized, don't delete anything without a lawyer: deletion can be used against you and won't remove what the authorities have already copied.

The operator keeps records of whom you called and texted, when, and where the phone was: operators keep this for 3 years. Since 1 January 2026 Russian internet services on the register of 'information dissemination organisers' must keep data about messages and users for as long (previously 1 year).
Logging in to Gosuslugi leaves the state a record with your IP address and the time.
Bank transactions are kept for years and are available to the security services on request.
Donor data also leaks from the fundraisers themselves: in August 2026 a large fundraiser for political prisoners leaked donors' email addresses and the last digits of their cards.