On September 11, 2026, Russia's Digital Development Ministry announced the country's first commercial 5G networks. MTS, Beeline, MegaFon and T2 are live in 16 cities and reach about 10 million people, according to Meduza's report of the announcement. The ministry says 50 more cities should follow by the end of 2026. The launch is real progress. It is also a case study in what happens when spectrum is allocated by security priorities instead of by where the device ecosystem is.
What actually launched
The operators received new spectrum at 4.63-4.99 GHz, distributed free of charge and in equal volumes. Habr's report puts each operator's share at 90 MHz. That is consistent with the four-way split of the 360 MHz range. Initial service also runs on LTE frequencies the carriers already held. Interfax reports that this approach adds roughly 20-25% capacity. According to Interfax, all four operators are live in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Yekaterinburg. The other 13 cities are split among one to three operators each.
The international standard band, 3.4-3.8 GHz, stays with the military and security services. Meduza notes that Vladimir Putin left those frequencies with them in 2019 and has not revisited the decision.
The strongest case for Moscow's approach
The security establishment's argument deserves a fair hearing. In 2019, CNews reported that the Security Council concluded the band could not serve military needs and consumer 5G at the same time. The report says Roskosmos and the Defense Ministry use it. If that is right, clearing incumbents is expensive and disruptive, and a state that sees its space and defence links as strategic assets can reasonably hesitate. Handing operators 360 MHz of new spectrum for free also lowers their costs. Starting on existing LTE frequencies gets service out sooner instead of waiting on a perfect band plan.
Those are real considerations. But the same CNews report quotes telecom analyst Mikhail Klimarev disputing the premise. He said ITU recommendations contain no military allocations in 3.4-3.8 GHz. His point is that the trade-off was never forced.
The ecosystem cost
The cost of the workaround shows up in devices. The 3.5 GHz range is the pioneer 5G band in most markets. GSMA said in December 2023 that assignments already exist in over 80 countries, and that WRC-23 completed harmonisation of 3.3-3.8 GHz across EMEA and the Americas. In Europe, the Commission's 2019 implementing decision of 24 January 2019 identified the 3.6 GHz band as the primary pioneer band for 5G in the Union. Chipmakers and handset makers build for that band first because the volumes are there.
Russia's band is different. On September 2, 2026, hi-tech.mail.ru quoted Oleg Yablokov of the National Technology Initiative platform saying that only about 3% of 5G smartphones actually work in this band (n79). The figure falls below 1% once iPhones are excluded, he said. Huawei, Honor and Xiaomi flagships support it, and Apple has restricted access in software. The ministry's answer is that iPhone access "depends on Apple", while Android support is promised "very soon."
The ministry has framed this as Apple's decision, but the spectrum plan created the incompatibility. Asking a global vendor to ship a Russia-specific radio configuration is a much bigger ask than asking it to enable a band that 80 other markets already use. The market is under sanctions and comparatively small. Apple has little reason to say yes.
Why the delay compounded the problem
The delay made things worse. Kyiv Post reports that the project has been discussed since 2017 and that launch dates were missed in 2020, 2022 and 2023. It attributes the slippage to a lack of domestic base stations, financial strain on operators, and Western sanctions. Ericsson left in August 2022 and Nokia by the end of that year. Carriers then turned to Chinese suppliers such as Huawei. The 2019 decision therefore did more than pick a band. It committed Russia to a supply chain that depends on a few vendors, at the moment those vendors became the only ones left.
In 2019, CNews cited manufacturers who said mass production of equipment for the alternative band was five to seven years away. The launch arrived just over seven years later. That is a poor result for a decision defended as pragmatic.
What proportionate policy would look like
A pro-innovation reading does not require Russia to abandon its security needs. It requires being honest about what they cost. Three steps would help.
- Publish a sharing or migration roadmap for 3.4-3.8 GHz. Even a partial release in dense urban areas would give users and vendors a reason to invest. Regulators elsewhere have used protection zones and phased clearing. Russia has published nothing comparable.
- Measure launch success by usable coverage, not city counts. Ten million people covered is not ten million people served if roughly 3% of 5G phones work on the new band. Publishing device compatibility and real-world speeds would let consumers see the gap.
- Do not treat the free allocation as a substitute for competition. Equal free shares among four incumbents are easy to administer. They also give the operators little incentive to push for better spectrum or wider device support.
The September launch matters, and 5G on refarmed LTE spectrum will help congested cities. But the announcement is a milestone in a process that a 2019 security decision made slower and narrower than it had to be. The next 50 cities will show whether device support catches up. If they do not, Russia will have built a 5G network that many of its own users cannot fully use.