The law requires operators to store the content of users’ phone calls and text messages for six months to aid the security services. However faced with a tight deadline to start storing the vast amounts of information, and in the absence of suitable Russian hardware, operators will have no choice but to use equipment made by foreign firms including Cisco, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Huawei. So the money spent so Putin can spy on his own citizens will end up overseas.

At the moment no Russian telecoms operator has the necessary infrastructure in place, despite a July 1 deadline to start storing users’ data, according to the two telecoms industry sources.

A spokesman for Deputy Prime Minister Maxim Akimov, responsible for telecoms, referred questions to the ministry for industry and trade. The ministry said Russian-made storage equipment had been tested this year and that it would seek to help local manufacturers competing against foreign firms.

There is no legal requirement for telecom operators to use Russian-made hardware to comply with the data rules, which are part of package of anti-terrorism legislation dubbed the Yarovaya laws after Irina Yarovaya, one of the sponsors in parliament.

A handful of Russian companies are approved by the domestic intelligence service, the FSB, to provide combined systems of software and hardware that gather and store the contents of phone calls and text messages.

The Yarovaya laws were written by officials in Russia’s Security Council, according to four sources in the IT sector and the government. The council, which includes key ministers, sets the strategic direction for Russia’s security and defence policies.

But apparently the laws were written without consultation with technical specialists, and just assumed that Russia had tech it did not have.

A week after Putin signed the law, Deputy Minister of Economic Development Oleg Fomichev said there was not enough data storage equipment available, in Russia or abroad, to meet the terms of the legislation.

The laws come against the background of a separate Kremlin drive to curb the use of foreign hardware and software in state digital infrastructure because it says such technology represents a cyber-security risk. Last year Moscow instructed government bodies and state companies not to buy foreign telecoms hardware.