Internet outages disrupt daily life in Russia, fueling fears of a digital crackdown
By Anna Chernova, Nathan Hodge, CNN
(CNN) — Replying to a friend’s message, ordering a pizza or hailing a ride on your handheld device may seem like simple tasks in a fully wired 21st-century city like Moscow. But residents of the Russian capital are finding that their smartphones have been dumbed down amid an unprecedented shutdown of the mobile internet.
Russia has long operated some digital censorship, banning social media apps like Facebook and Instagram. But since early March, Moscow has experienced internet and mobile service outages on a level previously unseen. Residents of the capital – a city of 13 million people – complain they cannot navigate around the center or use their favorite mobile apps. The interruptions appear to have had a knock-on effect of making it more difficult to make voice calls or send an SMS. Some are panic-buying walkie-talkies, paper maps, and even pagers.
The latest shutdown builds on similar efforts around the country. For months, mobile internet service interruptions have hit Russia’s regions, particularly in provinces bordering Ukraine, which has staged incursions and launched strikes inside Russian territory to counter Russia’s full-scale invasion. Some regions have reported not having any mobile internet since summer.
But the most recent outages have hit the country’s main centers of wealth and power: Moscow and Russia’s second city, St. Petersburg. Public officials claim the blackout of mobile internet service in the capital and other regions is part of a security effort to counter “increasingly sophisticated methods” of Ukrainian attack.
Unlike in Iran, where authorities have imposed a sweeping blackout, the internet is not completely curtailed in Russia. In the capital and elsewhere, Russians can access it via Wi-Fi. Some Russians have responded with viral internet humor: social media is flooded with jokes and memes about sending letters by carrier pigeons or using smartphones as ping-pong paddles. But the service interruptions have also had serious real-life consequences.
“It feels like the ground is being pulled out from under our feet,” said Svetlana, a resident of suburban Moscow who relies on a continuous stream of data to monitor the blood sugar levels of her diabetic 8-year-old son, Vanya. She uses the messaging app Telegram to send him detailed instructions on the required insulin dosage.
“This internet restriction seems so illogical,” said Svetlana, who asked that her last name not be used for privacy reasons. “For years – not even years, but decades – we were told that the internet and digitalization were so cool and so important, that everything should be online, that we had e-government services, that everything was becoming electronic… And then suddenly, everything we had built, everything we had been encouraged to rely on, is restricted… No one understands why or for what purpose.”
Theories over shutdowns
Speculation centers on whether the authorities are testing their ability to clamp down on public protest in the case there’s an effort to reintroduce unpopular mobilization measures to find fresh manpower for the war in Ukraine; whether mobile internet outages may precede a more sweeping digital blackout; or if the new restrictions reflect an atmosphere of heightened fear and paranoia inside the Kremlin as it watches US-led regime- change efforts unfold against Russian allies such as Venezuela and Iran.
In a report published days before the mobile internet outages hit Moscow, the US-based think tank Institute for the Study of War touched on several theories about the monthslong push for more digital restrictions.
“The Kremlin may be accelerating its internet censorship campaign now in order to preempt domestic backlash and insulate the regime ahead of future decisions that are likely to be unpopular at home,” the study said.
“The internet censorship campaign, if successful, could minimize the risk of noteworthy demonstrations or the formation of new civil society groups outside the Kremlin’s control.”
Rather than a single nationwide blackout, Russia appears to be moving toward a model of targeted, recurring, local disruptions and service degradation, according to Mikhail Klimarev, a Russian internet freedom expert and head of the Internet Protection Society.
The sectors hit hardest by restrictions are those that depend on e-commerce, such as courier services, taxis and retail outlets, he said.
On Wednesday, Russian mobile providers sent notifications that there would be “temporary restrictions” on mobile internet in parts of Moscow for security reasons, Russian state news agency RIA-Novosti reported.
The measures will last “for as long as additional measures are needed to ensure the safety of our citizens,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on March 11.
Growing unease
The potential cost to business may be high. Less than one week’s mobile internet shutdown in Moscow may have cost businesses an estimated 3–5 billion rubles ($34.8 million – $58 million, according to the business daily Kommersant.
Some Muscovites expressed a sense of despair. Leonid, a 34-year-old IT sales manager living in Moscow whose name CNN has changed over safety concerns, described a growing sense of unease at the restrictions and said they undermined his ability to work.
“We understand that, if they (the authorities) really manage to block both VPN (virtual private network) and Telegram, then we’ll have to leave the country, and I don’t know for how long,” he said.
As well as banning many social media platforms, Russia blocks calling features on messenger apps such as WhatsApp and Telegram. Roskomnadzor, the country’s communications regulator, has introduced a “white list” of approved apps, though Klimarev said the selection process was opaque. Russia has also tested what it calls the “sovereign internet,” a network that is effectively firewalled from the rest of the world.
The disruptions are fueling broader concerns about tightening state control. In parallel with the internet shutdown, the Kremlin has also been pushing to impose a state-controlled messaging app called Max as the country’s main portal for state services, payments and everyday communication.
There has been speculation the Kremlin may be planning to ban Telegram, Russia’s most widely used messaging app, entirely. Roskomnadzor said that it was restricting Telegram for allegedly failing to comply with Russian laws.
“Russia has opened a criminal case against me for ‘aiding terrorism,’” Telegram’s Russian-born founder Pavel Durov said on X last month. “Each day, the authorities fabricate new pretexts to restrict Russians’ access to Telegram as they seek to suppress the right to privacy and free speech. A sad spectacle of a state afraid of its own people.”
Internet freedom expert Klimarev said the Russian government in theory had the technical ability to wall off its internet or shut it down. He speculated that a number of triggers could prompt a full internet shutdown, such as a major escalation in the Ukraine war or an economic collapse.
“In any situation when they (the authorities) perceive some kind of danger for themselves and accept the belief that the internet is dangerous for them, even if it may not be true, they will shut it down,” he said. “Just like in Iran.”
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