On December 17, the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ hosted the traditional annual in-person session of the Russian Working Group on Universal Acceptance.
During the meeting, Maria Kolesnikova, Chair of the Working Group, presented a report on its performance in 2025. Throughout the year, group members delivered lectures and workshops on universal acceptance for students at leading Russian universities, participants of the Study the Internet & Govern It! Mentor School, and the Summer School on Internet Governance. In March, the Russian Working Group on Universal Acceptance co-organized the Universal Acceptance Day 2025 regional event in Yerevan, Armenia, with its members delivering presentations at Russian and international specialized conferences.
In 2025, in collaboration with the Поддерживаю.РФ project, the group monitored the level of universal acceptance support in Russian software and services, publishing the findings of their research on the project’s website. Efforts were also made to implement technical support for universal acceptance, including the group members’ work to develop guidelines for building websites that support IDN and EAI.
Maria Kolesnikova emphasized that this year has seen a major focus on expanding support for the Russian language and the languages of Russia’s peoples on the internet, particularly through the introduction of additional Cyrillic characters in the .РФ domain. She added that the work would continue into the next year.
“Naturally, we will further prioritize creating explanatory materials and analyzing the current situation to explore ways to standardize the handling of Cyrillic domains and email addresses in domestic software. The year 2025 marked a breakthrough for the digitalization of Russia’s indigenous languages, including the ability to register domain names in 18 official languages of the Russian Federation in the .РФ domain. Next year, we plan to increase the number of supported languages. However, for the full utilization of a language on the internet, it is essential that domains and email addresses in that language are correctly supported by all software products – from browsers and email clients to office applications. Thus, we still have much work ahead to implement universal acceptance,” Maria Kolesnikova remarked.
The meeting concluded with participants approving the work plan for 2026.
