These laws join other laws, the so-called anti-terrorist package from August 2014, which require service providers (defined very broadly to include such things as social networks and ISPs) to provide user data to the authorities upon request. If the server is physically in Russia and controlled by some Russian subsidiary, it is much harder for a company to evade such an order.

Few people even bother to pretend that this is about anything other than closer control of Russian internet users by the Russian authorities. There is a weak spin about protecting the data of Russian users from foreign governments by placing it within Russia, which makes zero sense, since nothing prevents an American company from giving user data from its Russian server to the American government.

And before someone says that the US does the same thing, note that something like 1000 people have already been imprisoned in the Russian Federation over various online comments and posts, and even Facebook likes. The fact that the US violates privacy also doesn't mean that it's all the same thing.

It's a mixed bag.

There are very real pragmatic reasons for Russians wanting to have their data stored locally.

At the same time, theses laws can be applied very unevenly, and can often become means to play geopolitical games.

This 'ban' may be on some level part of the constant diplomatic tit-for-tat that China/US/Russia play against one another.

I mean - think of the other 100's of thousands of apps that store Russian's users data in the US, as opposed to Russia ...

So messy :)