1470 Shutdowns: russia Is Cutting Itself off from the Global Internet

In July 2025, russia set an anti-record with 1470 Internet outages in a month. The recorded failures were unprecedented not only in terms of scale but also in terms of regularity. While previously, outages lasted for a few hours or days and were localized, now Internet access in some regions is lost almost daily.

Outages have been recorded in dozens of regions, including Lipetsk, Vladimir, Moscow regions, the Krasnoyarsk Territory, St. Petersburg and Novosibirsk, Nizhny Novgorod, Sverdlovsk, and Tyumen regions. In June 2025, the outage affected 77 regions, 47 of which were completely cut off from the network. In July, the situation worsened, with massive outages in additional 18 regions. Even in those located far from the combat zone (Primorye, Sakhalin, Kamchatka). There are also disruptions in the operation of the wired Internet.

russians are forced to adapt to life without stable access to the network, which excludes the usual financial transactions, navigation and online services. Complaints to the authorities do not help – on the contrary, officials threaten to send complainants to the war against Ukraine.

russian law enforcement agencies, together with providers, make decisions to restrict communication based on an assessment of the “operational situation”, which is often not explained in detail. However, the real aim of such actions is to control information and restrict russians’ access to sources undesirable to the kremlin.