No Connection in the Land of Despair
Inside Russia's tightening internet controls, from technical blocks to daily fear
by Anastasiia Iurshina
On March 29, 2026, demonstrations planned by the youth-led movement “Scarlet Swan” were expected to take place in Moscow and St. Petersburg in protest against Russia’s growing internet shutdowns and censorship. But as the initiative spread online, it was quickly overshadowed by suspicion, with numerous likely fake profiles appearing alongside genuine calls to protest, raising concerns about provocation, surveillance, and manipulation. The rallies were ultimately banned by the authorities under the pretext of COVID-19 restrictions.
Despite bans, small groups and individual protesters still took to the streets across multiple Russian cities, resulting in at least 17 detentions, including minors, along with reports of police violence, intimidation, and restricted access to legal support.
What follows is the testimony of an IT specialist living and working in Russia, describing what internet control looks like in practice in early 2026. They have worked in IT both for Russian and international companies for over 20 years, including software development, machine learning, and information security.
How extensive is the blocking now?
Without circumvention tools, many foreign websites no longer work – even those that are not officially blocked – because they are hosted on providers that have been restricted. Telegram, WhatsApp, and Google Meet do not work. Mobile internet is disrupted as well.
These shutdowns are implemented through the deployment of TSPU1 systems across internet providers. As a result, protocols like WireGuard and OpenVPN2 are often blocked or unreliable.
If you compare Russia’s system to, let’s say, China’s, in many ways it is worse. Chinese developers have built tools that still work there, and there is a long history of adaptation to censorship. In Russia, many of those same tools no longer work.
Some bypassing methods can still potentially work, such as Amnezia WireGuard and Xray-core with unconventional configurations, but it should be something not so obvious, the ones shared on YouTube might not work. Telegram proxies still work for Telegram messages, but calls do not work with them.
In the past, it was sometimes possible to find an IP from a whitelist range and route traffic through it. That has now been largely closed. A lot of the simpler loopholes people relied on even a year ago are disappearing.
How does it feel to be online now compared to before?
I don’t feel secure online. I can’t write anything freely anywhere. It feels like a minefield. You are constantly thinking not only about what is blocked, but about who is watching, what can be logged, and whether a tool that works today will stop working tomorrow.
What do people in the industry think about MAX, the state messenger?
Everyone is forced to install it, especially elderly people. Now, for example, one can only book a doctor’s appointment through MAX. The only other option is to go in person and wait in a line – it’s impossible to book appointments through the website anymore.
And of course there are security concerns; there is no end-to-end encryption. Everything is stored on the servers and can be read. Everything can be analysed at scale. And, obviously, it will be; authorities will look through correspondence using AI and automated systems. That is the real fear – not only surveillance, but surveillance that becomes cheap and universal.
What do people outside the industry still not understand?
In my opinion, sooner or later it may become almost impossible to avoid shutdowns. It will simply become too difficult for ordinary people to circumvent them. Maybe a small technical minority will still manage, but the vast majority will not. Ninety-nine percent of people could be cut off from the internet outside Russia. In practice, this would effectively mean unlimited digital control. With MAX, a person already loses agency.
And there are real-life consequences that should be taken into consideration as well, and especially with mobile internet restrictions; devices for diabetes no longer work, alarm systems stop working. Without mobile internet, you lose access to news, to navigation, even to very ordinary forms of coordination. You go outside and suddenly cannot check what is happening, where to go, or whether a service is functioning.
Is there anything to hold on to?
The only glimpse of hope comes from fast-moving grassroots communities that react quickly and fix things. There are technical networks of people sharing knowledge, testing workarounds, and patching what has been broken.
A recent example is when a workaround3 stopped working. It had allowed users to disguise encrypted internet traffic as ordinary video calls using infrastructure from VK, Russia’s largest social network, which remains accessible under government restrictions. The loophole had been closed – but by the end of the day, it was working again, restored through collective effort.
Where do you see hope in the longer term?
In peer-to-peer, fully anonymous networks, something closer to blockchain logic. Systems where you can communicate and make payments without depending on centralized control. I don’t want my taxes to be spent on things I am against. And I want to be fully anonymous.
What this interview reveals is not just the tightening of censorship, but the slow construction of a closed digital world: one in which communication is centralized, movement is constrained, and even basic daily routines depend on platforms tied to the state. The internet, once experienced as a space of openness and anonymity, is being remade into an instrument of control. And yet, for now, small pockets of resistance remain, collectively keeping alive the possibility that total control is not yet complete.
Technical Means of Countering Threats (TSPU) is a state-controlled system used in Russia to monitor and control internet traffic. In simple terms, it is a combination of hardware and software installed at internet providers that allows authorities to filter, slow down, or block online content and services. It works mainly through deep packet inspection (DPI), a technology that analyses internet traffic in real time – even when it is encrypted – to identify websites, apps, or protocols and restrict them if needed.
WireGuard – a modern internet protocol used to create secure, encrypted connections (VPNs) that help users bypass restrictions and protect their online activity. OpenVPN – an older but widely used protocol for establishing encrypted internet connections, commonly used in VPN services to access blocked websites and maintain privacy.
Some users routed encrypted traffic through systems normally used for voice and video calls (TURN servers), which relay data between devices. Because services like VK (Russian social network) are often included in government "whitelists" – platforms that remain accessible even during internet restrictions – this made it possible to make restricted traffic appear like ordinary communication.