Society
Kremlin Tests Out Its ‘Nuclear Option’ for the Internet in Russia
April 28, 2026
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Dmitri Zair-Bek
The Russian authorities have been testing whitelists of approved sites and services, which represent their Plan B should they ever face an existential threat. In the meantime, argues Russian human rights activist and internet expert Dmitri Zair-Bek, their Plan A is finding a balance of tightening the screws without seriously harming the economy.
In early March, mobile internet service suddenly vanished in central Moscow. Around the Kremlin and in several other areas, life built around digital infrastructure ground to a halt: digital services had been effectively “blinded”; couriers stopped working; and bank terminals in cafes and shops turned into useless pieces of plastic. According to Kommersant, Moscow businesses lost between RUB3 billion and RUB5 billion over the five days of this blackout.
This was not the first time the capital had been left without the internet. Something similar happened ahead of May 2025 Victory Day, while many regions of the country bordering Ukraine have been living in a state of blackout for a while. But the March shutdown was fundamentally different in nature: for the first time, the Kremlin deployed whitelists of approved sites and services on a large scale in Moscow.
In those days, when even basic services failed to connect to the internet in the city center, the websites of major state corporations, the Gosuslugi public services portal, Russian Railways sites and VK services continued to function (though not without some trouble). The regime is preparing the country for a new censorship model. For them, this is Plan B, which, once the decision is made, will quickly become Plan A. We ought to be ready for that.
To understand why the state is taking this step, it is necessary to understand the architecture of Russian internet blocks. The Russian internet operates within the paradigm that “everything is permitted unless explicitly prohibited.” Roskomnadzor maintains endless blacklists, but it is losing the technological arms race: TSPUs (“technical means of countering threats”), deep packet inspection “boxes” installed on the network of every internet service provider in Russia under the 2019 sovereign internet law, automatically filter traffic. They open passing data packets and search them for digital traces of specific “subversive” content, including VPN services. New types of VPNs mimic routine encrypted traffic with extraordinary sophistication or overload it with “garbage” data until it becomes unrecognizable to the boxes. Roskomnadzor has a very hard time distinguishing such traffic from legitimate traffic – which is why the free internet is still alive in Russia. Blocking all encrypted traffic “just in case” would amount to killing half of the modern economy.
Having realized it is losing the technological battle with VPN developers and users, the state decided to change the rules of the game and prepare a Plan B. Under the pretext of defending against Ukrainian drones, Russian censorship is now testing a model based on the principle that “everything is prohibited unless explicitly permitted.” If the state succeeds in implementing this system nationwide – which, I believe, is its goal – traditional software tools used to circumvent blocks will become useless. No matter how skillfully your traffic is disguised, the TSPU system will not let it through because the service you want to use, or the website you want to visit, is not included in government whitelists.
If the state has an instrument of absolute control in its hands, does this mean the time will soon come to throw away our smartphones? In theory, yes. In practice, however, total “sovereignization” is constrained by economics. Consider the case of Iran, where the authorities regularly impose shutdowns and put in place their own whitelists. Their experiments last year cost the country’s digital economy hundreds of millions of dollars in losses in just a few weeks and put millions of jobs at risk.
This was not the first time the capital had been left without the internet. Something similar happened ahead of May 2025 Victory Day, while many regions of the country bordering Ukraine have been living in a state of blackout for a while. But the March shutdown was fundamentally different in nature: for the first time, the Kremlin deployed whitelists of approved sites and services on a large scale in Moscow.
In those days, when even basic services failed to connect to the internet in the city center, the websites of major state corporations, the Gosuslugi public services portal, Russian Railways sites and VK services continued to function (though not without some trouble). The regime is preparing the country for a new censorship model. For them, this is Plan B, which, once the decision is made, will quickly become Plan A. We ought to be ready for that.
To understand why the state is taking this step, it is necessary to understand the architecture of Russian internet blocks. The Russian internet operates within the paradigm that “everything is permitted unless explicitly prohibited.” Roskomnadzor maintains endless blacklists, but it is losing the technological arms race: TSPUs (“technical means of countering threats”), deep packet inspection “boxes” installed on the network of every internet service provider in Russia under the 2019 sovereign internet law, automatically filter traffic. They open passing data packets and search them for digital traces of specific “subversive” content, including VPN services. New types of VPNs mimic routine encrypted traffic with extraordinary sophistication or overload it with “garbage” data until it becomes unrecognizable to the boxes. Roskomnadzor has a very hard time distinguishing such traffic from legitimate traffic – which is why the free internet is still alive in Russia. Blocking all encrypted traffic “just in case” would amount to killing half of the modern economy.
Having realized it is losing the technological battle with VPN developers and users, the state decided to change the rules of the game and prepare a Plan B. Under the pretext of defending against Ukrainian drones, Russian censorship is now testing a model based on the principle that “everything is prohibited unless explicitly permitted.” If the state succeeds in implementing this system nationwide – which, I believe, is its goal – traditional software tools used to circumvent blocks will become useless. No matter how skillfully your traffic is disguised, the TSPU system will not let it through because the service you want to use, or the website you want to visit, is not included in government whitelists.
If the state has an instrument of absolute control in its hands, does this mean the time will soon come to throw away our smartphones? In theory, yes. In practice, however, total “sovereignization” is constrained by economics. Consider the case of Iran, where the authorities regularly impose shutdowns and put in place their own whitelists. Their experiments last year cost the country’s digital economy hundreds of millions of dollars in losses in just a few weeks and put millions of jobs at risk.
Mikhail Arefiev / Unsplash
Were a whitelist regime to be rolled out across the entire Runet, foreign trade would grind to a halt, logistics chains would collapse and the accounting systems of hundreds of thousands of small and medium-sized businesses not included among the “chosen few” on the whitelists would languish. Russia is also helped by the fact that the Runet is structured differently from the internet in Iran or neighboring Belarus. Russia has thousands of independent telecom operators, dozens of traffic exchange points and, essentially, a decentralized architecture. Imposing a unified whitelist regime across all of that is far more difficult than in the other, abovementioned countries, where all external internet traffic passes through a single state-controlled bottleneck or several of them.
Experience suggests that turning the Russian segment of the global internet into a truly “sovereign” system without crashing the economy is nearly impossible. China spends colossal resources filtering internet traffic, yet VPNs there continue to function. Total isolation has really succeeded only in Turkmenistan – but at the cost of effectively destroying the country’s internet and creating a corrupt monopoly in which state officials personally sell access to banned resources.
The Kremlin is therefore forced to search for a balance. As long as the free internet does not pose a direct, existential threat to the regime, the authorities will, instead of blocking everything, push internet users into controlled environments like Yandex, VK and Max, among other platforms. Hence the ban on promoting circumvention tools, the removal of apps from app stores and the gradual introduction of legal liability for content consumption. In calm times, the goal of Russian censorship is simply to make access to the global internet too difficult for most people.
Meanwhile, a Plan B is in the works – in case of a genuine crisis. To understand how it works, let’s again look at Iran. In January, Tehran shut down the country’s internet with complete disregard for the economic consequences. For the Iranian regime, control over the internet had become a matter of physical survival. When the stakes are that high, the authorities will readily sacrifice hundreds of millions of dollars and entire sectors of the economy.
The Runet faces a similar fate, which is precisely why whitelists are needed. They are a “nuclear option” to protect the regime itself. The moment the authorities feel their survival is under threat, the search for a balance will end instantly. A system of total isolation will be rolled out at full capacity and the economic damage to businesses will be an afterthought.
Satellite communication systems such as Starlink are still available. However, for the overwhelming majority of Russians, Starlink remains inaccessible both financially and technically. Officially, it does not operate in the country, and the equipment enters Russia exclusively through the gray market. Coverage is limited: terminals can get a signal only in narrow strips along the country’s borders thanks to satellites servicing neighboring countries – and only if the operator itself does not block the connection. It is pointless to look at Starlink as a potential systemic response in Russia to mass blocks.
To sum up: if Day X comes and the Kremlin decides to shut down communications in the country entirely – home internet, mobile internet and even ordinary phone calls – software circumvention solutions will be completely useless. In such a scenario, it will not matter much whether whitelists are used or not. The Russian state operates in every sphere according to the same ruthless logic: it erases the boundary between what is normal and what is not, conditioning us to accept isolation as just the new rules of the game.
Experience suggests that turning the Russian segment of the global internet into a truly “sovereign” system without crashing the economy is nearly impossible. China spends colossal resources filtering internet traffic, yet VPNs there continue to function. Total isolation has really succeeded only in Turkmenistan – but at the cost of effectively destroying the country’s internet and creating a corrupt monopoly in which state officials personally sell access to banned resources.
The Kremlin is therefore forced to search for a balance. As long as the free internet does not pose a direct, existential threat to the regime, the authorities will, instead of blocking everything, push internet users into controlled environments like Yandex, VK and Max, among other platforms. Hence the ban on promoting circumvention tools, the removal of apps from app stores and the gradual introduction of legal liability for content consumption. In calm times, the goal of Russian censorship is simply to make access to the global internet too difficult for most people.
Meanwhile, a Plan B is in the works – in case of a genuine crisis. To understand how it works, let’s again look at Iran. In January, Tehran shut down the country’s internet with complete disregard for the economic consequences. For the Iranian regime, control over the internet had become a matter of physical survival. When the stakes are that high, the authorities will readily sacrifice hundreds of millions of dollars and entire sectors of the economy.
The Runet faces a similar fate, which is precisely why whitelists are needed. They are a “nuclear option” to protect the regime itself. The moment the authorities feel their survival is under threat, the search for a balance will end instantly. A system of total isolation will be rolled out at full capacity and the economic damage to businesses will be an afterthought.
Satellite communication systems such as Starlink are still available. However, for the overwhelming majority of Russians, Starlink remains inaccessible both financially and technically. Officially, it does not operate in the country, and the equipment enters Russia exclusively through the gray market. Coverage is limited: terminals can get a signal only in narrow strips along the country’s borders thanks to satellites servicing neighboring countries – and only if the operator itself does not block the connection. It is pointless to look at Starlink as a potential systemic response in Russia to mass blocks.
To sum up: if Day X comes and the Kremlin decides to shut down communications in the country entirely – home internet, mobile internet and even ordinary phone calls – software circumvention solutions will be completely useless. In such a scenario, it will not matter much whether whitelists are used or not. The Russian state operates in every sphere according to the same ruthless logic: it erases the boundary between what is normal and what is not, conditioning us to accept isolation as just the new rules of the game.
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