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OpenRouter Restrictions and the Case for Open Models

OpenRouter restricts Russian access to models whose providers prohibit use in certain regions. Other models still work, but dependence on someone else’s policy is becoming harder to ignore.

OpenRouter has begun restricting access from Russia to models whose providers prohibit use in particular countries and regions. The service now states this directly in its terms: model providers define the list of restricted models, and that list can change.

The good news is that other models remain available. But the clouds are gathering quickly: even a convenient unified gateway ultimately depends on the policies of the companies that own each model.

My post about China is only becoming more relevant. The long-term insurance policy is rapid progress in open-weight models, reproducible tooling, and the ability to deploy the stack on infrastructure you control.

OpenRouter rules for restricted models

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