Kremlin will let Russian citizens bypass sanctions to access ‘extremist organisations’ Facebook and Instagram

Russians could, however, face consequences for ‘financing extremism’ if they pay for ads on Meta’s platforms

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The Kremlin will not punish Russian citizens who bypass government sanctions against Facebook and Instagram, according to one senator.

The statement, made by Senator Andrey Klishas to state-owned news agency RIA Novosti, comes as the Russian government marks Meta an “extremist organisation” and takes steps to ban Instagram.

The technology giant had recently announced that it would be breaking with existing policy and allowing users to call for the death of Russian armed forces.

“In light of the ongoing invasion of Ukraine, we made a temporary exception for those affected by war, to express sentiments toward invading armed forces such as ‘death to the Russian invaders’”, Meta said in a statement.

This change is primarily directed towards countries involved in the conflict and neighbouring European countries, but only with specific regard to the invasion. Meta said it would continue to remove hate speech directed at Russians in general, and from territories outside of the immediate conflict.

Controversially, however, these “temporary measures” also allowed for praise of the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion, which has admitted to recruiting neo-Nazis and is currently being armed in the fight against Russia.

While Russian citizens will still be able to use the apps, users who have paid for advertising on Facebook and Instagram could face consequences for “financing extremism” and have their accounts blocked if Meta is recognised as an extremist organisation, RIA Novosti reports.

WhatsApp, however, will not be affected by measures against Meta, since it is a means of communication not posting information, one unnamed source told the publication.

Russian citizens have been using VPNs at a significantly higher rate than before the invasion to bypass the government’s restrictions. Reports indicate that downloads for the top VPN software in Russia from an average of 16,000 per day to over 700,000 daily downloads since 24 February.

As well as Facebook, which has already been banned in Russia alongside Twitter, Netflix, TikTok, Google’s Play services, and many other technology companies have restricted access to their products.

Russia could be planning on legalising piracy in the face of these sanctions, and could potentially disconnect from the global internet entirely – although has claimed that it would only do so in the event of major cyberattacks.