The Kremlin’s growing capabilities to throttle the web may establish a disconcerting precedent for other authoritarian-minded governments in the region. At the same time, the Russian government’s actions raise questions about whether there are limits to Russians’ tolerance for daily inconveniences and increasing constraints.

For over 10 years, Russian president Vladimir Putin has tried to tighten control of the country’s Internet. The full-scale invasion of Ukraine only accelerated this trend. Since the beginning of the war, Russia has banned Facebook, Instagram, X (formerly known as Twitter) and YouTube. According to a report from Human Rights Watch, Russia has also blocked thousands of websites including those operated by independent media outlets, human rights organizations, and political opposition entities and individuals.

Most recently, Russia’s state communications agency Roskomnadzor restricted calls on WhatsApp and Telegram, two of the most popular messaging apps in Russia. According to Mediascope, Telegram and WhatsApp have around 89 million and 96 million users respectively in the country.

While authorities billed the move as an “anti-fraud measure” to protect citizens, it appears to be an attempt to increase monitoring of Russians. WhatsApp and Telegram have end-to-end encryption, theoretically meaning that no third party, including the Russian government, can access messages or listen to calls. Officials in Russia maintain this violates Russian law because the apps will not store users’ data in the country.

Concurrently, the government is attempting to push users to replace these platforms with Russia’s new super-app, dubbed “Max,” launched by VKontakte, a Russian media company that is influenced by the state. The app, which is now required to be pre-installed on all phones in Russia, contains extensive tracking capabilities for surveillance, including real-time location data. The new app project has been compared to China’s WeChat, one of the world’s largest social media platforms that has many different functions to go along with broad concerns about privacy.

Russian restrictions extend much further than targeting individual platforms and sites. For four months now, every Russian region has experienced mobile Internet blackouts, the BBC reports. Authorities claim these cutoffs are precautionary measures to minimize the potential damage done by Ukrainian drone attacks. But such claims remain debatable, as many drone systems do not rely on mobile networks, and instead operate using satellite communication, autonomous navigation, other radio frequencies, or even fiber optics.

The mobile network shutdowns can last for a few hours to several days, but some districts in Nizhny Novgorod have gone without mobile Internet access for over two months. Despite the supposedly preemptive rationale for the measure, the city has endured continued drone attacks. GPS signals are not jammed, according to locals who worry that the shutdowns are more of an attempt at censorship than a public safety initiative.

While the shutdowns have occurred on a regional basis, Russia is preparing to centralize this ability through a single state body that would manage mobile network blackouts.

The Internet shutdowns and call restrictions have had tangible consequences. The Russian Internet Protection society estimates that a single day of nationwide Internet shutdowns can cause losses up to hundreds of millions of dollars, disrupting commercial banking, businesses, and everyday services.

Beyond inconvenience, it can be life-threatening. In the Volga region in July, a drone attack killed three people after the factory’s alarm failed to alert workers due to an Internet blackout.

WhatsApp and Telegram call bans have also frustrated Russian citizens who could not contact friends and family or conduct business over the messenger platforms. One resident of Bashkortostan wrote on social media. “This is torture, we are like blind. We can’t do anything, we can’t contact our relatives, teachers, or doctors. Don't we have the right to communicate?”

Popular frustration reached the point in September where multiple Russian cities saw the first government-tolerated protests in years, during which citizens voiced opposition to the restrictions. While the protests were relatively small, it is not a stretch to believe many more Russians share the same sentiments.

As Russia fine-tunes its snooping and censoring techniques, a dark cloud looms ahead for other Eurasian countries with authoritarian-minded governments that may be tempted to enact similar restrictions. At home, Internet blackouts and blocked calls disrupt daily life, how families and friends communicate, how people order taxis, shop or simply get through the day. If they continue to expand, these digital restrictions may turn out to be the wartime burden ordinary Russians increasingly refuse to bear.