According to Runet Monitor, which tracks the state of connectivity in Russia, 57 regions across the country reported mobile internet cuts Tuesday, and on any given day, dozens of areas are affected. Authorities have justified the cuts as a way to avert attacks by Ukrainian drones, which have been known to use local mobile networks for guidance. One Russian region, Ulyanovsk, home to military-linked factories, said this week that mobile data would be blocked until the end of the war.
The constant cuts in mobile internet are the latest way Russia’s population is feeling the effects of nearly four years of full-scale war with Ukraine, but also come on top of measures to restrict Russia’s internet and convert a once-raucous online world into what many are calling a “digital gulag,” as repressive as those in China or Iran.
Residents in St. Petersburg said the restrictions can cause chaos, scrambling taxis and transport and stopping card machines, but war-fatigued Russians have learned to shrug and get on with things, adapting to a world that is often without the online conveniences so many other countries take for granted.
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The bans began with Facebook and Instagram after the 2022 invasion and moved on to throttling the very popular YouTube starting in the summer of 2024, then this past August restricting WhatsApp and Telegram calls.
“Of course, people are mad. They are not happy with what’s happening with the internet,” said Mikhail Klimarev, Berlin-based executive director of the Internet Protection Society. “People are very unhappy and infuriated. But people will not protest, just because it makes no sense. If you do, you will be beaten up and then you will be put in jail.”
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Another way Nadezhdin copes is by carrying several phones, because “in some regions, one operator’s connection is better, and in others, a different operator’s connection is better.” It also gives him a way of dealing with the increasingly mandatory state-controlled national messaging app, Max. The service has no end-to-end encryption but is needed to access any state service, so he restricts the app to just one phone.
“Max has a very bad reputation. People say that with the help of Max, the authorities can follow you, can see what you write, can listen to what you say,” he said.
The government, meanwhile, said Wednesday that all the building chat groups that residents use to communicate must be transferred to Max by year’s end. There are an estimated million such chat groups among the tenants of all the apartment buildings in the country.
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In the past, Russia implemented “black bans” — blocking thousands of websites associated with opposition figures, activists or other unapproved activity, according to a July report by Human Rights Watch. Now Russia is increasingly shifting to “white lists” — strictly limited lists of government-approved sites that Russians may access, with other sites blocked.
The next step could be banning virtual private networks, or VPNs, which can be used to bypass restrictions on internet and individual sites. Individual VPNs have been blocked, and advertising them is illegal, but there is not yet a blanket ban.
From the article:
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