Reports are flooding in from across Russia that Telegram is suddenly going dark, fueling speculation that the Kremlin may already be testing a nationwide block ahead of a rumored planned crackdown next month.
"Over the last 24 hours, Telegram has effectively stopped working through some providers if you are using Russian IP addresses," tech sector observer Vladislav Voytenko told Kommersant FM on Monday. "As for using Telegram via mobile internet, you can basically forget about it," he added.
Russia’s Main Radio Frequency Center, an arm of media watchdog Roskomnadzor, said a surge of complaints began appearing over the weekend, with at least one-third coming from Moscow, followed by St. Petersburg and other cities spread across the country's vast 11 time zones.
Regional media has tracked user reports on outage monitors such as Downdetector and Sboi.rf, which show complaints spiking sharply over the weekend as the app began failing across multiple regions.
Some Russian users have described the platform is barely functioning "in any form". They complain the app won't open, messages won't send, and neither will photos and videos load.
Tech analysts say the disruption looks less like a technical glitch and more like the targeted throttling of Russia's most popular messaging service and social media site, with an estimated 90 million users.
Prior reported efforts of the Russian government to restrict Telegram, particularly in 2018 and 2020, failed given that users as well as the company were repeatedly successful in bypassing Kremlin measures.
However, with access suddenly collapsing across the country at the start of this week, many observers believe the Kremlin may finally be preparing to finish the job. The reality is that Telegram is notoriously difficult for governments to monitor and censor.
But Moscow believes the company itself could be using it against Russia amid the Ukraine war. As we featured earlier this month:
Authorities in Russia believe that Ukraine has quick access to Russian servicemen’s messages and exploits this for military purposes, which wouldn’t be possible without some degree of complicity on Telegram’s part, thus impugning its founder’s character after he denied working with foreign spooks.
The FSB claimed to have “reliable information that the Ukrainian armed forces and intelligence agencies are able to quickly obtain information posted on the Telegram messenger and use it for military purposes.” This coincides with the government allegedly throttling Telegram on the grounds that it’s not in compliance with local laws, which preceded reports that it’ll be banned on 1 April. The authorities denied that they have nay such plan but there’s no doubt that Telegram is now controversial in Russia.
This comes also as the West has been calling Russia's ever-tightening internet regulations on its citizenry a "digital Iron Curtain".
Russian government authorities have all the while accused the messaging giant of failing to curb fraud and safeguard user data, which ironically is similar to what the French government accused the company of when it famously detained billionaire Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov in 2024.