The Kremlin has been trolling the Internet and blaming security threats. Most Russians don’t buy it

When residents in central Moscow tried to use their phones on Tuesday morning to access social media, do banking or order a taxi, they were blocked from accessing the Internet.

It was the only recent mobile phone to hit the capital.

Videos have surfaced online of people camping out at McDonalds and cafes to use WiFi, which was still working.

When mobile internet service was restored by mid-afternoon, the government used the usual rhetoric to justify the temporary shutdown: it was necessary for security reasons.

Telecom providers and Russian banks have warned people to prepare for blackouts ahead of the annual May 9 Victory Day Parade, which will be held rated highly back this year. But the outage appears to be part of Moscow’s strategy to throttle Internet access and replace it with Kremlin-approved sites and forums.

“Officials say it’s for our safety… but many people around me don’t believe it [that],” said Artem, a 37-year-old teacher living in the Moscow suburbs, who asked to remain anonymous because of how dissent is treated in Russia.

“People are worried and depressed because … we don’t get a reasonable explanation,” he told CBC News via Zoom.

Internet restrictions have increased amid Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine, now in its fifth year. As the Kremlin tries to maintain its narrative that the war was just and that Russia will win, it has tried to limit any online information to the contrary.

Since Ukraine is now using long-range drones to repeatedly strike Russia, too amid reports that security strengthened by President Vladimir Putin, the government says mobile internet restrictions are necessary to prevent “terrorist attack.”

The so-called white list

Officials have argued that mobile networks can help drones penetrate targets. But the end of mobile internet also coincided with a new government campaign to target private networks (VPNs), which allow a user to hide their IP address and are widely used by Russians to bypass government restrictions on the country’s digital space.

Without the use of a VPN, many foreign platforms, such as YouTube, Instagram and the popular messaging app Telegram, are largely inaccessible. As thousands of VPN services are still available in Russia, the state has become more focused on technology and now requires internet providers to identify users who log in via VPN and restrict their access.

It’s the latest attempt to do what Russian lawmakers see as a private internet which includes platforms made in Russia, shaped by Russian laws.

The authorities have checked the so-called white list, which is a list an authorized set of websites and platforms that should remain accessible even if other Internet traffic is blocked.

Recent shutdowns and increased government control of the country’s digital space have led to growing public discontent, including in the state-affiliated software industry.

Alleged Internet infringement

Natalya Kaspersky, an influential tech executive who sits on several Kremlin advisory boards, said government restrictions are leading to a crackdown on the Internet and “creating massive public dissatisfaction with the authorities.”

Kaspersky, who owns cybersecurity company Kaspersky Labs and is chairman of the board of the Association of Russian Software Developers, sent a letter to Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin on April 22, followed by social media posts calling out the government’s actions.

He made this post on Telegram, which is widely used by Russian citizens and government agencies, but can now only be reliably accessed by using a VPN.

He said there were disruptions “every day” and doubted that all of these disruptions “can be explained by fighting enemy drones.”

In his book, he pointed out that when regulators try to target VPN traffic, legitimate traffic, such as banking websites, is intercepted and blocked.

“People have been blocked from platforms, they find ways to avoid this. They are blocked from avoiding these places and they find new ways,” he wrote.

Wide use of VPN

Artem, who works with students, said that many of them are already active VPN users.

“When they start using smartphones from the age of eight … some of them already use VPNs,” he said.

Artem said that VPNs are easily available and cheap, which is why he subscribed to several different services, so that when someone is asleep or blocked, he can switch to another one.

Using a VPN is illegal in Russia, but the government is looking at more ways to limit its use.

Ministry of Digital Development of Russia is working on a system of charging fees to those who use more than 15 gigabytes of global data per month on mobile networks, and at the end of March, the Minister of Digital Development Maksut Shadayev will not withdraw from introducing administrative fines for VPN use.

Last week, Valery Fadeev, the head of the country’s Presidential Human Rights Council, called the use of VPNs unnatural, saying that Russians who use them do not want “an alternative view” but “what the enemy says.”

Mikhail Klimarev, executive director of the Internet Protection Society, which represents a free Internet and helps users learn how to bypass restrictions, described Russia’s digital censorship as “extremely bad” and believes it is worse than what is happening in China, due to the number of blocked sites.

The Beijing digital research program is often referred to as the Good Firewall, while others outside Russia have labeled the Kremlin’s plan as a “digital Iron Curtain.”

Authorities “would like information independence, to stop citizens’ access to free information,” said Klimarev, who is based in Germany and spoke to CBC News via Zoom.

He says those who don’t have the technical knowledge to navigate Russia’s borders will always be inundated with the Russia story and “propaganda,” while others will eventually find new ways to bypass ongoing censorship.