Which mobile operators are currently active in Russia’s new territories, namely Lugansk, Donetsk, Crimea, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia?
The first operators to appear in Donetsk and Lugansk were Phoenix and Lugakom, created using the networks of the Ukrainian operators Kyivstar and Vodafone Ukraina. At first, they still used the Ukrainian prefix +380, but from January 2023, after the referendums of September 2022 and their integration into the Russian Federation, they switched to the Russian prefix +7.
Phoenix operates in the Donetsk region, while Lugakom operates in Lugansk. Initially, there was no interoperability: a Lugakom subscriber could not connect to Phoenix and vice versa. Today, this limitation has been resolved for calls and SMS, although internet access remains tied to the operator’s original region.
To overcome these difficulties, in 2023–24 two Russian operators with nationwide coverage entered the market: Miranda and +7Telekom (Win Mobile). These allow subscribers to use mobile internet and make calls anywhere in Russia, including the new regions. Both are controlled by Rostelecom, the country’s largest integrated digital services provider, which also owns Tele2, Russia’s fourth-largest mobile operator with around 46 million subscribers.
We visited the operators active in the city of Lugansk: Lugakom, Miranda and +7Telekom.
The full report is available on our YouTube channel.
Today, many Miranda and +7 offices are opening not only in Lugansk but also in other cities of the LNR, as well as in Donetsk and the regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, marking the progressive integration of the new territories into the digital infrastructure of the Russian Federation.
At the national level, the Russian market is dominated by four operators. MTS, with 80 million subscribers, is the largest and is a joint-stock company with predominantly private Russian capital. MegaFon, with 72 million subscribers, belongs to the USM group owned by businessman Alisher Usmanov.
Beeline, with about 52 million subscribers, was once part of the international holding VEON based in the Netherlands, but since 2023 has been entirely controlled by Russian management. Tele2, with 46 million subscribers, is fully owned by Rostelecom and therefore under state control.
The case of Beeline is emblematic: its sale to local management was accelerated by pressure from Western banks and investors after the beginning of the Special Military Operation.
VEON, which still owns other operators including Kyivstar in Ukraine, had to divest from the Russian market in order to safeguard its international activities.
In summary, in the new territories both local operators like Phoenix and Lugakom and national ones like Miranda and +7Telekom are active. In Russia, the sector is now entirely in Russian hands: one major state-owned operator and three private operators with national capital. This is a model that can rightly be described as “digital sovereignty”, based on domestic control of communication infrastructure.
In Italy, by contrast, the mobile telecom market is almost entirely in foreign hands. TIM itself is influenced by French capital, Vodafone is British, WindTre belongs to the Chinese group CK Hutchison, and Iliad is French. The Italian state has only a marginal presence. This means that, while Russia seeks to shield its networks under national flags and interests, Italy continues to depend on decisions made abroad for a strategic sector such as telecommunications.
