Since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russia has blocked Facebook, Instagram and X. It has also blocked many independent and foreign news sites, the messaging apps Signal, Viber and Discord, and hundreds of VPN services. YouTube was throttled from mid-2024, WhatsApp and Telegram calls were cut in August 2025, and by early 2026 Russia had moved to network-level blocking of YouTube, Facebook and WhatsApp domains.
The blocks rest on a mix of court rulings, “false information” and extremism laws, and administrative orders by the regulator Roskomnadzor. Increasingly, they are enforced by state-installed deep packet inspection equipment.
Major platforms blocked or restricted in Russia
| Platform or service | Status | Date | Stated reason or legal basis | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Blocked | 2016 | Data-localization law | Freedom House, 2022 | |
| Twitter/X | Throttled, then blocked | Throttled from Feb 26, 2022; blocked Mar 4, 2022 | Non-compliance with takedown demands; war-related “false information” | OONI, 2022; Freedom House, 2022 |
| Blocked | Partial from late Feb 2022; full Mar 4, 2022 | Meta later declared extremist | Freedom House, 2022 | |
| Blocked | Mar 14, 2022 | Meta declared extremist by a Moscow court (late Mar 2022) | Freedom House, 2022 | |
| BBC, Deutsche Welle, Voice of America, Radio Svoboda, Meduza | Blocked | Mar 3-4, 2022 | War coverage labeled “false information” | OONI, 2022 |
| TV Rain (Dozhd) | Blocked | Mar 1, 2022 | War coverage | OONI, 2022 |
| Google News | Blocked | Late Mar 2022 | Followed Google’s demonetization of invasion content | Freedom House, 2022 |
| 81 European media outlets (incl. AFP, Politico, Der Spiegel, Le Monde) | Blocked | June 2024 | Retaliation for EU sanctions on Russian media | Freedom House, 2025 |
| YouTube | Throttled, then domain-level blocking | Throttling from July 2024; domains removed from national DNS Feb 2026 | Alleged “anti-Russian policy” | Freedom House, 2025; Mediazona, 2026 |
| Signal | Blocked | Aug 2024 | Anti-terrorism and extremism laws | Freedom House, 2025 |
| Discord | Blocked | Oct 2024 | Violation of Russian law | Freedom House, 2025 |
| Viber | Blocked | Dec 2024 | Anti-terrorism and extremism laws | Freedom House, 2025 |
| Sites using Cloudflare Encrypted Client Hello | Blocked | Oct 2024 | Not specified in source | Freedom House, 2025 |
| Calls blocked, then throttled; domains removed from national DNS | Calls Aug 2025; nationwide throttling by late Nov 2025; DNS removal Feb 2026 | Fraud and terrorism claims | Mediazona, 2026 | |
| Telegram | Calls blocked; restrictions intensified | Calls Aug 2025; escalation Feb 10, 2026 | “Non-compliance” with Russian law | Mediazona, 2026 |
| VPN services | 197 blocked; VPN apps removed from app stores | As of Oct 2024; 761 apps removed by Apple Mar 2026 | 2017 VPN law (276-FZ) | Barents Observer, 2024; Mediazona, 2026 |
Statuses reflect the most recent source listed. Russia’s blocklist changes often, and throttled services may still work intermittently.
Blocks after the 2022 invasion
Within days of the invasion, OONI’s network measurements showed Russian ISPs throttling Twitter and blocking outlets that covered the war. Current Time TV and Crimea Realities were among the first, on February 26 and 27. TV Rain was blocked on March 1, and the BBC, Deutsche Welle, Voice of America, Radio Svoboda and Meduza followed on March 3 and 4 (OONI, 2022). OONI recorded at least six blocking techniques, from DNS tampering to injected TCP resets during the TLS handshake. Some ISPs used several techniques at once.
Facebook and Twitter were fully blocked on March 4, 2022. Instagram followed on March 14 after a 48-hour warning. At the end of March, a Moscow court designated Meta an extremist organization, and Google News was blocked around the same time. By July 2022, the digital rights group Roskomsvoboda had counted about 5,300 IP addresses blocked over war coverage (Freedom House, 2022).
A new criminal law adopted at the same time punishes “fake” information about the armed forces with up to 15 years in prison (CPJ, 2025).
YouTube, messaging apps and European media in 2024
In 2024 Russia moved on to services that ordinary Russians used every day. YouTube throttling began in July 2024 and intensified in August and December. Signal was blocked in August, Discord in October and Viber in December. In June, Russia blocked 81 European outlets in response to EU sanctions on Russian state media. In October, it began blocking sites that use Cloudflare’s Encrypted Client Hello, a privacy feature that hides which site a user is visiting (Freedom House, 2025).
Freedom House lowered Russia’s score from 20 to 17 out of 100. It cited the blocking of encrypted messengers, the wider blocking of VPNs and orders to remove VPN apps from app stores.
Calls, whitelists and DNS removal in 2025 and 2026
Mediazona’s April 2026 review describes a further escalation (Mediazona, 2026):
- August 2025: voice calls blocked on Telegram and WhatsApp.
- September 2025: a mobile-internet whitelist of 57 approved sites and services introduced. During shutdowns, only these stayed reachable, among them the government services portal, major banks, Yandex, VKontakte and the state messenger Max.
- Late November 2025: WhatsApp throttled nationwide.
- February 2026: YouTube, Facebook and WhatsApp domains removed from Russia’s national domain name system. Roskomnadzor announced tougher Telegram restrictions on February 10.
- March 2026: Apple removed 761 VPN apps from the Russian App Store, and a mobile shutdown in central Moscow lasted nearly three weeks.
Regional mobile shutdowns have also become routine. Access Now officially counted 20 shutdowns by Russian authorities in 2025, but it said emerging evidence pointed to hundreds or thousands of disruptions across almost every region (Access Now, 2026).
Laws behind the blocks
- The 2017 VPN law (276-FZ) requires VPN and anonymizer providers to cut off access to banned sites or be blocked themselves. A companion law requires messaging apps to identify users by phone number (HRW, 2017). In 2022 Roskomnadzor said it treats tools for getting around blocks as a threat under the communications law (Interfax, 2022).
- The 2019 “sovereign internet” law put Roskomnadzor-controlled DPI equipment, known as TSPU, inside ISP networks. That equipment is used to identify and throttle traffic by type (Mediazona, 2026).
- Under a July 2025 law, deliberately searching for “extremist” material became punishable from September 1, 2025 by fines of 3,000 to 5,000 rubles. A companion law signed the same day, July 31, banned VPN advertising (Meduza, 2025).
Practical consequences
- Assume foreign platforms will be unreliable inside Russia. Even services that are not formally blocked may be throttled, removed from local DNS, or unreachable during mobile shutdowns.
- During a whitelist-based mobile shutdown only approved destinations work, so no VPN can connect over mobile data.
- Under the 2025 law, deliberately searching for material Russia lists as extremist can lead to a fine, and VPN use can be cited as evidence of intent.
- Keep more than one messenger or other channel for reaching friends and colleagues in Russia.
Methodology and limitations
The table draws on Freedom House’s Freedom on the Net reports (2022 and 2025), OONI network measurements, Mediazona’s 2026 review, Access Now’s 2025 shutdown report, and legal reporting by Human Rights Watch, Meduza, CPJ and Interfax. Dates are those given by these sources and may differ by a day or two from Roskomnadzor’s formal orders. Some entries, such as the 2025 and 2026 WhatsApp and Telegram measures, come from a single source. Roskomsvoboda’s live registry statistics were unavailable during research, so its blocked-IP count comes from Freedom House. Because blocks are often partial and vary by ISP and region, a service listed as throttled may work for some users and not others.