Russia Suffers Second Large-scale Internet Outage In Three Days

The reasons for the incident are not yet known.

On the evening of April 6, the Runet experienced a large-scale disruption affecting, among others, banks, telecom operators, entertainment platforms and government portals. According to "Disruption.rf", problems occurred at Rostelecom, Alfa Bank, NTV Plus, Tricolor, Gosuslugi, T2 operator, and Mosenergosbyt. Downdetector service also recorded complaints about failures in the work of "Sber", "Gazprombank", online cinema Okko and game platform "World of Tanks". The reasons for the incident are not yet known, The Moscow Times reports.

Earlier, on April 3, there was a large-scale disruption in Russia's financial infrastructure. Then, according to Downdetector and "Disruption.rf," problems arose at the largest banks - Sber, VTB, Alfa Bank and T-Bank - as well as at the Central Bank's Faster Payments System. Forbes, citing sources in the cybersecurity and telecom industries, soon wrote that the failure could have been caused by "overstretching" of Roskomnadzor's technical means of countering threats. The publication's interlocutors suggested that the TTPU equipment stopped coping with the multitude of blocking rules and "collapsed under the load." A technical expert at RKS Global noted that "a failure of this scale may be a 'side effect' of blocking in Russia," as the scale of restrictions is already so large that serious errors are constantly occurring and network connectivity is degrading.

Internet shutdowns in Russia have been occurring since May 2025. According to the project "On Connectivity," the authorities regularly organize shutdowns in more than 60 regions, and "white lists" of allowed sites have already been implemented in 72 subjects. In 2025, Russia became the world leader in terms of the scale of shutdowns, which affected 146 million people, Top10VPN calculated. RKS Global experts predict a complete transition of the country to an isolated Internet by 2028. Informed sources told Reuters that Moscow studied the experience of China, which lives behind a "great firewall," and Iran, where the Internet is regularly shut down in response to public protests. Officials were then instructed to find a way to block vast segments of the network while controlling online communications.

With this background, proposals to tighten regulatory measures have been voiced in the State Duma. Nina Ostanina, head of the Family Protection Committee, said that Russians should be allowed to access the Internet only with a passport, in order, she said, to shield children from abusers. The deputy chairman of the Information Policy Committee, Andrey Svintsov, suggested adopting a law "on an honest, clean and legal Internet" obliging platforms to de-anonymize users. In its turn, the Ministry of Digital Media demanded that companies on the "white list" close access to Russians who access their resources with VPN enabled, otherwise the services may be excluded from the list, Kommersant reported. According to Forbes, the agency also suggested that providers introduce a fee for the consumption of more than 15 GB of international traffic via VPN per month in mobile networks.

You can support the website Charter97.org

MULTI-CURRENCY ACCOUNT FOR ASSISTANCE:

Bank's name: Bank Millennium S.A.
Address: ul. Stanislawa Zaryna, 2A, 02-593, Warszawa
IBAN: PL97116022020000000216711123
SWIFT: BIGBPLPW
Name of the account holder: Fundacja “KARTA ‘97”
Purpose/title of payment: Donation for statuary aims

You can contact us by the e-mail [email protected]