Executive Summary
By the end of 2025, the Kremlin’s attempt to build a “sovereign internet” has run into serious obstacles: despite a sharp escalation of censorship and a surge of website blocks to 1.2 million, the digital ecosystem has proven far more resilient than authorities anticipated. Telegram, Instagram, and YouTube — the primary sources of independent information in Russia — not only retained their user base but surpassed television in viewership. Their combined share as news sources reached 37% for the first time. This is unacceptable for Vladimir Putin, who as early as 2014 declared that the internet “was created as a CIA special project” and neither uses nor trusts online platforms.
Against this backdrop, the authorities are aggressively forcing the adoption of the “people’s messenger,” MAX. A second “competitor” to MAX, positioned as a business-friendly alternative, is scheduled for launch in 2026: the new super-app “Molniya,” developed jointly by Russian and Chinese teams. According to the developers, business accounts in the Russian messenger Molniya will be connected to China’s WeChat Pay and Alipay with zero commission for currency conversion. The built-in artificial intelligence will translate contract language and support electronic signatures with dual certification under both Russian and Chinese law. On the Russian side, the project involves Red Soft — effectively the IT contractor for the Ministry of Defense and the state corporation Rostec. Rostec purchased a 30% stake in Red Soft this summer ahead of Molniya’s launch, deepening a long-standing strategic partnership. In theory, this creates “competition” between MAX — a product of presidential administration structures — and the Rostec-backed Molniya, led by Rostec’s long-time chief Sergey Chemezov, a close associate of Putin from the KGB Dresden residency who controls the bulk of Russia’s defense procurement. In practice, both projects function as parallel efforts by the Kremlin: Sergei Kiriyenko, who oversees MAX and has consolidated the entire propaganda apparatus under his influence, and Chemezov, whose militarized Rostec acts as Russia’s largest wartime conglomerate, aim to fully monopolize the social media and messaging ecosystem.
From a communications standpoint, the failure of earlier bans and blocks has shaped the current strategy: the Kremlin has shifted to systematic pressure on key communication channels — from restricting calls on WhatsApp and Telegram to initiating the direct blocking of WhatsApp and issuing threats toward Telegram. These measures are paired with major propaganda narratives about “combating fraud” and “protecting data from the West,” enabling censorship to be framed as public safety. The real driver, however, is the Kremlin’s fear of losing the “battle for minds,” despite massive investments in pro-government social media and messaging operations — and especially given Telegram’s architecture, which prevents total propaganda control. On December 5, Putin spelled this out explicitly: “These messengers — Telegram and so on — are used to influence young people... We must constantly stay in contact with young people and use their tools, their devices, use modern means of delivering information to them, feedback, social networks; we must work there.”
The Kremlin continues escalating targeted shutdowns, as seen on November 28 when the regulator Roskomnadzor confirmed a phased blocking of WhatsApp. Shortly afterward, State Duma Information Policy Committee chair Sergey Boyarsky issued an ultimatum to Telegram, demanding deeper cooperation with authorities. These measures reflect a strategy of “service degradation”: the state aims to alter user habits while shifting blame for deteriorating connectivity onto the platforms themselves — a tactic previously used in attempts to block YouTube while accusing the service of failing to maintain infrastructure in Russia. In December, the Kremlin expanded the list of blocked apps: on December 4, Roskomnadzor (link, link) reported the blocking of FaceTime and Snapchat, citing their alleged use by scammers and terrorists. The Kremlin is simultaneously trying to promote MAX — a Russian analogue to WeChat — as a universal communications platform. Having first attempted to build a positive image of the “state messenger,” the government then shifted to coercion through administrative pressure on schoolchildren, students, and public-sector employees. The campaign, however, met widespread public resistance: TikTok was flooded with videos mocking the app, parent associations protested, and data from Moscow authorities showed that only 7% of students and 20% of parents were using MAX. Nevertheless, there is no indication that the Kremlin plans to halt promotion of the unpopular platform — Putin personally endorsed the project.
“Without this (internet support), it will be very difficult for us to maintain our own messenger. Government services, financial institutions — all of that must be moved to this platform,” Putin noted.
Recognizing that VPNs remain the primary tool for bypassing censorship, the Kremlin dramatically intensified pressure. On December 4, the Kremlin-aligned outlet RBC reported that Roskomnadzor updated its technical threat-mitigation systems (TSPU) deployed on telecom networks, enabling blocks on SOCKS5, L2TP, and especially VLESS — previously considered difficult to detect. This followed mass VPN disruptions across major regions. RBC experts warn that users will now be forced to constantly switch servers and protocols. For now, the Kremlin has been unable to neutralize VPNs: according to Levada Center data, 36% of Russians use them, and among young people the figure reaches nearly 60%. Therefore, authorities avoid loud public campaigns against VPNs, relying instead on intimidation — such as a law introducing aggravated penalties for crimes committed while using a VPN.
In parallel, the Kremlin continues expanding mobile-internet shutdowns and the transition to “allow-lists.” Since May 2025, shutdowns have become routine: by November, the number of daily blackouts reached 74, and 72% of citizens reported experiencing connectivity loss, according to the independent polling service Khroniki. Against this backdrop, authorities have introduced restricted sets of approved services: by late November, allow-lists were active in 57 regions and included Gosuslugi, VK, MAX, Rutube, and major marketplaces. Official propaganda depicts them as a “way to preserve access to essential services,” but in practice they constitute a test run of a permit-based internet model — allowing the Kremlin to manually shape the digital environment and determine which services remain accessible to the public.
Stalled progress toward “internet sovereignty”
Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin has sharply expanded internet censorship: it blocked Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and partially TikTok, while the number of websites listed in Roskomnadzor’s registry rose from under 200,000 at the end of 2021 to 1.2 million by 2025. Yet the ultra-popular WhatsApp, Telegram, and YouTube remained structural gaps in the censorship wall. The inefficiency of the blocking regime was amplified by a surge in VPN use: according to Cybernews, the share of VPN downloads rose from 4% in 2021 to 42% in 2022. VK — headed by Vladimir Kiriyenko, son of First Deputy Chief of Staff Sergei Kiriyenko — was expected to become the primary beneficiary of foreign platform bans. Although VK initially grew from 23.8 million content authors in 2021 to 28 million by late 2023, its numbers then declined to 20 million in 2025, according to Brand Analytics. Telegram, by contrast, expanded steadily: from early 2022 to the end of 2024 it added roughly 20 million authors, almost fully compensating for the audience lost by “banned” platforms. Beginning in the second half of 2024, Instagram’s content-author activity also resumed growth: after dropping below 40% of its pre-war peak in spring 2023, by fall 2025 it climbed to 64% of its 2021 high. Combined, Facebook, Instagram, Telegram, and YouTube reached 94% of their pre-invasion activity levels in 2025, while VK fell to 82%, Brand Analytics reports.
On YouTube, traffic from Russian IP addresses fell fourfold between the first half of 2024 and fall 2025, yet monthly reach dropped only 26% — from 96 million in July 2024 to 71 million in October 2025, according to Mediascope. Meanwhile, political-content viewership on YouTube from November 1–25, 2025 exceeded November 2024 levels by 2%, YouScore.Top notes. According to the independent Levada Center, the share of social networks as news sources rose from 17% in 2023 to 19% in August 2025, and Telegram’s share grew from 4% to 14% over the same period. As a result, the combined share of Telegram, social networks, and YouTube reached 37% — surpassing television for the first time.
This dynamic explains the Kremlin’s escalating fight against messaging platforms, manifested in new pressure measures: restricting calls on WhatsApp and Telegram as of August 13, attempting to limit registrations as of October 31, and banning advertising on Instagram as of September 1. On November 28, Roskomnadzor confirmed the blocking of WhatsApp, and on December 2, State Duma Information Policy Committee chair Sergey Boyarsky issued an ultimatum to Telegram demanding greater cooperation with the authorities.
Large-scale outages in messaging apps — the most recent on November 28 — have become a tool of coercion: authorities use them to test blocking capabilities and gauge public reaction. This fits into a broader strategy of “service degradation” aimed at destroying user habits. In parallel, the Kremlin seeks to shift part of the blame onto the platforms themselves — similar to the earlier campaign around deteriorating YouTube performance, where propaganda accused the service of failing to maintain servers in Russia.
The Kremlin frames its actions through two dominant narratives: the fight against fraud and terrorism (which messaging apps allegedly “fail to prevent”) and the notion of a “sovereign internet,” simplified for mass audiences into claims about the risk of “data leaking to the West.” The first narrative is highly manipulative but effective, capitalizing on genuine public anxieties: telephone fraud has indeed surged since the start of the full-scale invasion. This is confirmed even by the Kremlin-aligned “National Anxiety Index” compiled by the firm KROSS: fraud threats ranked second among all concerns in Q3 2025. This is how the Kremlin links public fears to new blocks: when confirming the shutdown of WhatsApp, Roskomnadzor stated that the messenger is used “for fraudulent and other criminal activities” and “does not meet requirements for crime prevention.” The propaganda outlet Komsomolskaya Pravda claims that WhatsApp “enables Ukrainian fraudsters.” The narrative of a “sovereign internet” is promoted personally by Vladimir Putin and, in more informal terms, by propagandist Yekaterina Mizulina (link, link), who at youth events urges participants to read WhatsApp’s terms of service and “see for themselves” that any information “can be given to anyone.”
Forced adoption of MAX and emerging resistance
Facing the limits of its previous measures, the Kremlin moved on to steps aimed at reshaping the very landscape of the Russian internet. Alongside VK, the authorities envision the “state messenger” MAX as a core element of the digital ecosystem. The Kremlin is working to create the impression that MAX is becoming a mandatory part of public infrastructure: for example, chief propagandist Vladimir Solovyov routinely asks guests on his broadcasts whether they are registered in MAX, while the propaganda outlet Lenta.ru reports: “Eighty-seven governors now maintain channels in the MAX messenger.” However, this information offensive quickly ran into resistance. Independent media began circulating reports about MAX vulnerabilities, and the authorities failed to offer convincing responses. The Kremlin then shifted to administrative pressure: the messenger began appearing as a preinstalled app on all devices, the Ministry of Digital Development recommended that government agencies transition to MAX by January 1, 2026, and the Ministry of Science and Higher Education demanded that institutions create groups in MAX and report on the implementation. Resistance emerged on a broad and organic scale: TikTok filled with satire, including video (link, link, link, link) joking that MAX should be read backwards (in Russian — “scam”). Schoolchildren post tips on how to “trick” teachers, while parent associations began protesting: the “Parents’ Council of Glazov” met with the head of the city education department and released a video statement, and the Parents’ Council of the Vologda region launched a petition drive. Official data confirm public distrust: according to internal statistics from Moscow’s authorities, only 7% of schoolchildren and 20% of parents use MAX, and implementation in high-performing schools is almost nonexistent. The reasons are clear: the absence of end-to-end encryption, the risk that correspondence may be shared with state agencies, its integration with the Gosuslugi portal, and its closed-source code.
VPN and escalating pressure
The Kremlin has sharply intensified its crackdown on VPNs, which remain the primary tool for circumventing censorship. On December 4, it became known that Roskomnadzor updated its TSPU settings, launching widespread blocking of three additional VPN protocols — SOCKS5, L2TP and especially VLESS, previously considered one of the most detection-resistant. According to RBC sources, TSPU systems are now able to identify VLESS through indirect indicators — traffic to foreign IP addresses and mismatched domain names. In the second half of November, users in Tatarstan, Udmurtia, the Nizhny Novgorod, Sverdlovsk, Novosibirsk, Tomsk and Volgograd regions, as well as Primorye, reported mass VPN outages. Experts warn that as filtering tightens, constant switching between protocols will become the norm. Notably, the Kremlin avoids a large-scale public campaign against VPNs — both to avoid increasing their popularity among those who have not yet used them and to prevent backlash from those who rely on VPNs for everyday tasks. The propaganda outlet Gazeta.Ru quotes a “cybersecurity specialist,” Sergei Rysin, saying: “It would be worth first understanding why each specific person turns on a VPN.” The Kremlin’s position has also been codified: on July 31 Vladimir Putin signed a law classifying the use of a VPN in the commission of a crime as an aggravating circumstance (link, link) and additionally banning the advertising of VPN services. Despite these measures, according to the Levada Center, 36% of respondents at the beginning of 2025 acknowledged using a VPN, and another 31% said they know how it works. Among Russians aged 18–40, nearly 60% use VPNs.
“White lists” and shutdowns: a new system of internet governance
Since May 2025, the Kremlin has shifted to systematic mobile-internet shutdowns. Initially, authorities justified them as security measures ahead of May 9, but the practice soon became routine. The Kremlin instructed regional governors to absorb the public backlash and explain the outages as being for “security purposes” (link, link, link). Informally, officials circulated claims that mobile networks could be used by Ukrainian drones (link, link), although shutdowns also occurred in regions where drones physically cannot reach — including Khabarovsk and Primorsky Krai, the Amur region and Sakhalin.
According to the independent project Khroniki, in October 2025, 72% of respondents experienced outages. By November, the average daily number of shutdowns reached a record 74.4 (a total of 1,340), researchers from the project Na svyazi report.
In parallel, the Kremlin is testing “white list” technology — a limited set of websites and services that remain accessible even during shutdowns. By late November, such lists were already in place in 57 regions. They include Gosuslugi, VK, MAX, Rutube, major marketplaces and state media. Inclusion in the list has become a matter of lobbying competition: for example, Sberbank and VTB were excluded, which experts attribute to a long-running dispute over transfer fees. Sources for the business outlet The Bell note that there is no regulatory framework or formal selection process, so operators use the Ministry of Digital Development’s list only partially and add their own resources.
Propaganda portrays “white lists” as a way to “stay connected.” Artyom Kiryanov, deputy chair of the State Duma Committee on Economic Policy, claimed: “The goal is the opposite of an ‘internet shutdown’ — it is to provide people with stable access to government services...”. Oleg Kapranov, head of the “Technology” project at Rossiyskaya Gazeta, called the lists a “compromise solution” designed to preserve everyday services.