Looking for service in the Motherland?  Internet users are accustomed to thinking of the globe as one flat network, but unfortunately, humans are going to human.  The network is fragmented due to different sovereignties, sanctions, and political realities.

Some geographies are completely out of reach.  You’re not going to get a VPS in Pyongyang.  You’re not going to get one in Vatican City, either, though for radically different reasons.  You can get a VPS in Hong Kong, but not in Beijing, at least not without a whole lot of paperwork.  And of course, some locations are unattainable just due to local infrastructure.

What about Russia?  We’ve had a fair number of non-Russian LowEndTalk members and LowEndBox readers over the years, wanting to reach customers or gamers in the Motherland.  In 2025, can a Westerner buy a VPS in Russia?

Sanctions

Let’s take a US citizen as our working example.

In the US, Russia is heavily sanctioned.  Citizens are prevented from providing IT services to Russians, which is why you saw an exodus of companies after February 2022, and why you won’t be seeing Moscow as a cloud location for Amazon AWS or Google GCP any time soon.

What about purchasing services, though?

If the VPS is hosted in Russia by Russian providers, such transactions could be interpreted as providing prohibited services to entities within the Russian Federation.  You’re also sending money to Russian companies.  And even if the provider is non-Russian, you’re benefitting individuals and entities inside Russia if the server is hosted there – since the provider has to pay for datacenter and electricity – so it’s the same situation.

Of course, I’m talking about a private, LowEnder doing this.  Most business users would immediately run afoul of various compliance concerns, given widespread surveillance inside Russia.

Even if it’s a Russian provider who’s offering service in a non-Russian location, you’ve still got funds flowing to Russia and benefitting Russians.

I have not followed EU law to the same extent, but I believe the legal realities are very similar.  (If you disagree or have more info, please comment below!)

There’s also the practical realities of the transaction.  How are you going to pay for it?  Visa, MasterCard, and other popular credit cards no longer work inside the Motherland, and neither do payment processors such as PayPal.  Crypto would be your only option.  But of course, BitCoin (as an example) never promises anonymity, only transparency.  While it’s unlikely the FBI would track down a $5/month transaction, if your real-world identity was ever connected to your wallet, your history of spending money in sanctioned companies would immediately come to light.

IANAL

So my conclusion to the question posed in a flat No.

That doesn’t mean it’s impossible, just that it’s not legal and is full of hassles.  If you seriously need service a Russian location, perhaps ask yourself some questions:

• What is driving my need?  If it’s geographic proximity, are there other nearby countries?  Obviously, this can be challenging given that Russian is the largest country by landmass in the world.
• Is this geographic proximity really needed?  Gameservers, probably yes.  Shared hosting, probably not.
• If the need is to service Russians inside Russia, you should seek legal counsel because you’re operating a business inside Russia which is going to fall under an array of sanctions.

raindog308

Raindog308 is a longtime LowEndTalk community administrator, technical writer, and self-described techno polymath. With deep roots in the *nix world, he has a passion for systems both modern and vintage, ranging from Unix, Perl, Python, and Golang to shell scripting and mainframe-era operating systems like MVS. He’s equally comfortable with relational database systems, having spent years working with Oracle, PostgreSQL, and MySQL.

As an avid user of LowEndBox providers, Raindog runs an empire of LEBs, from tiny boxes for VPNs, to mid-sized instances for application hosting, and heavyweight servers for data storage and complex databases. He brings both technical rigor and real-world experience to every piece he writes.

Beyond the command line, Raindog is a lover of German Shepherds, high-quality knives, target shooting, theology, tabletop RPGs, and hiking in deep, quiet forests.

His goal with every article is to help users, from beginners to seasoned sysadmins, get more value, performance, and enjoyment out of their infrastructure.

You can find him daily in the forums at LowEndTalk under the handle @raindog308.