Russia’s communications watchdog Roskomnadzor plans to spend 59 billion rubles over the next five years to upgrade its internet traffic-filtering capabilities, the Russian edition of Forbes reported on Tuesday.

The money will be used to upgrade hardware used to filter internet traffic, as well as block or slow down certain resources, Forbes reported, citing documents.

Russia passed a law in 2019 to enable the country to cut itself off entirely from the internet, in what it calls a campaign to maintain its digital sovereignty. Following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin forced out several foreign social media and internet companies, although many services remain accessible via virtual private networks, or VPNs.

The system upgrades will allow Russian authorities to better restrict access to VPNs, according to the document.

New equipment has been purchased yearly since 2020 as traffic volumes grow, Roskomnadzor’s press service said, according to Forbes.

The Biden administration recently hosted representatives of several major tech companies, including Amazon.com Inc, Alphabet Inc’s Google and Microsoft Corp, to discuss government-funded internet censorship evasion tools, Reuters reported last week.

  - Bloomberg