Russia’s struggle with the open internet is no longer only about censorship, blocked websites or the authorities’ irritation with Telegram. It is becoming a broader story about the shrinking spaces of autonomy that still allowed Russian society, business and professional communities to breathe inside an increasingly militarized state. The pressure on VPNs, messengers, digital platforms and international traffic shows that the Kremlin is not simply closing another channel of information. It is trying to reorganize everyday life around the logic of security, control and dependence on state-approved infrastructure. The paradox is that this attack is directed against one of the few spheres where Russia had real modernizing potential: its digital economy.
The Putin regime is stomping on digital freedom in the name of security, but that does not stop drone attacks (nor independent information)
For a long time, the Russian digital sector was one argument that the country was not moving backwards. Online banking, taxi platforms, delivery apps, e-government portals and cashless payments worked at a level many European cities could envy. Behind this stood a strong engineering school, a large pool of programmers and a consumer market ready to adopt digital services quickly.
That illusion is now collapsing. In previous articles for Veridica, we wrote about Russia’s digital transformation from a symbol of technological pride into an instrument of control, and about the possible models of a sovereign Russian internet inspired by China, Iran and North Korea. The current stage shows that these processes are not separate. Russia is not only building technical infrastructure for censorship; it is changing the relationship between the state, business and citizens. The internet is becoming the place where political loyalty, economic dependence and everyday convenience are fused together.
As political analyst Ekaterina Shulman says the comparison with the late Soviet anti-alcohol campaign may sound unexpected, but it is useful. That campaign affected almost everyone, regardless of political views. It entered private life, disrupted habits, created shortages and encouraged informal markets. Today’s campaign against digital freedoms has a similar all-pervasive character. It affects opposition-minded citizens, apolitical users, pensioners, entrepreneurs, couriers, IT specialists, banks, retailers and transport companies. The state explains everything through security: drones, fraud, extremism, foreign influence. Yet the measures often look technically crude, economically damaging and socially irritating.
The current securitization of the internet sacrifices efficiency and freedom to a security logic that does not even deliver convincing security. Drone attacks do not disappear because mobile internet is switched off in Russian cities. Fraud does not vanish because foreign platforms are blocked. Independent information does not cease to exist because users are pushed from Telegram or WhatsApp to state-approved alternatives.
A threefold strategy: pushing users towards state-sanctioned social media, limiting VPNs usage, and managing internet access through “white lists”
First comes the struggle against Telegram and other messengers that remain difficult for the authorities to fully control. In 2026, restrictions on Telegram and WhatsApp intensified, while the state-backed messenger MAX was promoted as a domestic alternative. The larger issue is that messaging, payments, public services and identification can gradually be brought into one ecosystem where the state has much greater leverage over citizens’ communications.
Second comes the attack on VPNs. A direct ban is difficult to administer because millions of people use circumvention tools and because the Russian economy itself still needs access to global digital infrastructure. Therefore, the authorities are moving through indirect mechanisms. Reports in spring 2026 described plans to charge extra for international mobile traffic above a monthly threshold, a measure widely interpreted as aimed at making VPN use more expensive. Other reports indicated that major platforms such as Gosuslugi, Sberbank, Ozon, Wildberries, Aviasales, Yandex services and Russian Railways began denying access to users connected through VPNs after advice from the Digital Development Ministry. The state does not need to catch every VPN user.
Third comes the system of “white lists” and selective access. During mobile internet shutdowns, some approved services may remain available while others disappear. This looks less dramatic than a complete blackout, but it may be more important. If access to the customer, the payment, the taxi, the bank or the marketplace depends on inclusion in a privileged list, then digital infrastructure becomes a field of bureaucratic discretion. For business, this creates dependency. For officials and security agencies, it creates opportunities to monetize permissions.
This is where Russia’s model becomes especially interesting. Earlier, the choice seemed to lie between several authoritarian digital futures. The North Korean model means near-total isolation. The Chinese model means a developed national ecosystem under state control. The Iranian model means restrictions combined with widespread circumvention and selective enforcement. Russia appears to be trying to combine the Chinese and Iranian tracks. It wants domestic substitutes for foreign platforms, but it also tolerates grey zones where restrictions exist, are bypassed and can be monetized.
An own goal scored against an already struggling economy
But the costs are not limited to civil liberties. Modern digitalization penetrates almost every part of the economy. When the state interferes with connectivity, it interferes with payments, logistics, advertising, customer service, remote work, transport, retail and banking. Mobile internet shutdowns in Moscow and other regions have already shown how quickly “security measures” can turn into business disruptions. Cafes cannot process payments, taxis cannot work normally, couriers lose routes, ATMs and terminals fail, and customers return to cash not because they want to, but because the digital environment has become unreliable. Experts estimate that internet shutdowns may cost Moscow alone up to 1 billion rubles a day — roughly $12.5 million at the actual exchange rate.
For the Russian IT sector, this is a strategic dilemma. It was once one of the few parts of the economy that could speak the language of global competitiveness. It depended on talent, openness and trust. Now it is being pushed into a closed and politicized market. Companies are expected to help implement restrictions, detect VPN use, block unwanted users, promote state-approved services and adapt to sovereign infrastructure. The state delegates repression to the most efficient economic actors, making private and semi-private platforms co-administrators of control.
But internet restrictions are not felt only by the politically active minority. A person who cannot pay in the metro, order a taxi, contact relatives, access a marketplace, watch a foreign service or work through a VPN experiences state policy directly, not through propaganda. This does not create automatic protest. Russian society is tired, atomized and afraid. However, the restrictions do erode the status quo in which the citizen stays away from politics while the state leaves everyday convenience intact.
The Kremlin seems to understand this risk, which is why it avoids one clean and total rupture with the global internet. Instead, it chooses a hybrid answer. Access remains, but becomes more expensive, unstable and conditional. Services function, but only if they comply. Users can still find workarounds, but the cost of autonomy rises. Business can still operate, but only by accepting a growing administrative burden.
This is still not a digital iron curtain descending in one theatrical moment. It is a slow narrowing of corridors.
