* Ministry publishes proposed AI rules

* Rules are move to extend Russian control over AI sector

* Moscow wants Russian user data stored inside Russia -

RIA

* Rules say AI should respect 'traditional Russian

values'

By Andrew Osborn

March 20 (Reuters) - Foreign AI tools like Claude,

ChatGPT and Gemini could be banned or restricted inside Russia

if they fail to adhere to new rules that would give Moscow

sweeping powers to regulate the sector, according to government

proposals published online.

The proposals, published by Russia's Ministry for Digital

Development, would extend to the burgeoning AI sector Russia's

drive to establish a sovereign internet - protected from foreign

influence and respecting what it calls "traditional Russian

spiritual and moral values."

Russia's Ministry for Digital Development said in a

statement that the new rules were designed to "help protect

citizens from covert manipulation and discriminatory

algorithms."

RESTRICTING CROSS-BORDER AI TECHNOLOGY

The initiative, which is likely to benefit home-grown AI

tools being developed by state lender Sberbank and technology

group Yandex, has been made public at a time when the Russian

state is tightening state control over the internet.

The regulations are expected to enter into force next year

after further review and government approval.

"The operation of cross-border artificial intelligence

technologies may be prohibited or restricted in cases specified

by the legislation of the Russian Federation," the rules state.

The state-run RIA news agency reported on Friday that

foreign AI tools would fall under the new rules because they

inevitably transferred the data of Russian citizens abroad.

"Cross-border artificial intelligence technologies refers to

all foreign AI models, including ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini,

where the use of such models results in user data, queries and

dialogues being transmitted to the developers of these models

outside Russia," RIA cited a specialised technology lawyer,

Kirill Dyakov, as saying.

All three models mentioned by Dyakov were developed by U.S.

companies: OpenAI, Anthropic and Alphabet's Google,

respectively.

Other foreign but open AI tools, such as China's Qwen or

DeepSeek, could however be safely adapted and rolled out in a

closed environment on the proprietary infrastructure of Russian

government organisations and companies, Dyakov said, since any

data processed would remain within that infrastructure.

RIA said AI models used by more than 500,000 people per day

would need to store Russian user information on Russian

territory for three years to be compliant under the new

regulatory regime. Western tech companies have in the past

refused to comply with such demands.