“One day the Internet and Telegram work, the next day they don’t.” To stay informed, Ihor*, who lives in Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory, relies on services that are virtually inaccessible. In free Ukraine, his relatives have access to a variety of information sources.

He does not.

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, platforms and messaging services owned by American companies such as Facebook, Instagram, X, YouTube, as well as Signal and Viber—owned by a Japanese company—have been partially or completely censored. The latest target is Telegram, the messaging app founded by Russian entrepreneur Pavel Durov, which has been blocked since last spring after falling out of favour with the Kremlin.

Moscow has gradually closed the digital space in Russia and in the eastern and southern regions of Ukraine occupied by the Russian army in 2014 and 2022, replacing foreign services with its own applications, such as Max, which RSF has previously investigated.

Banned Ukrainian media outlets have been replaced by pro-Kremlin disinformation websites, including ZaMedia, a holding company created in 2022 by Russian entrepreneur Alexander Malkevich, as well as Russian media organisations such as the state-owned broadcasting group VGTRK, which opened an office in the occupied city of Donetsk.

To continue accessing diverse sources of information, residents of Russian-controlled areas of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson and Crimea have had to adapt their habits.

“RSF condemns the information lockdown orchestrated by the Kremlin in the occupied territories, mirroring what has become routine in Russia itself. Residents are forced to seek information clandestinely, hoping that the methods they use today—particularly VPNs—will still work tomorrow. It is unacceptable that entire populations are being cut off from reliable sources of information and bombarded with Russian propaganda in their own country.

Russia’s digital colonization of occupied territories

Russia’s digital colonisation begins with something as basic as a phone number. Residents have gradually been forced to abandon their pre-occupation Ukrainian SIM cards in favour of Russian or local operators in order to remain reachable or access certain administrative services.

“I had to buy two Russian SIM cards. I experienced it as a constraint, not a choice,” says Maryana, who lives in Crimea, which has been occupied since 2014.

“As a general rule, we try to postpone switching to anything Russian for as long as possible,” explains Tetyana, a resident of Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine, partially occupied since 2014.

Ihor, from the occupied Luhansk region, also had to adapt. In his case, neither Ukrainian nor Russian SIM cards worked. He eventually resorted to purchasing a local card.

“Not all Russian SIM cards work here. I had to buy a SIM card from the LPR,” he says, referring to the “Luhansk People’s Republic,” the Russia-backed separatist territory established in 2014 and illegally annexed by Russia in 2022.

From one messaging app to another as services are blocked

For years, messaging apps and social media platforms developed by non-Russian companies allowed residents to stay informed and connected to the outside world. Gradually, however, they have been blocked.

“Viber, WhatsApp, then Facebook,” Ihor lists. “Today, we no longer really have a messaging service that actually works.”

Residents are constantly looking for “ways to communicate with relatives in free Ukraine,” and this forced isolation has taken a toll.

“It’s sad. We do everything we can to stay connected, but nothing works properly,” Ihor laments.

To compensate for the lack of reliable information, some residents rely on family members outside the occupied territories.

“When some information seems suspicious to me, I send it to family members who have access to more sources,” explains Tetyana from the Donetsk region.

These territories are flooded with pro-Kremlin or Russian-controlled information sources, while independent media have been blocked.

For Maryana in Crimea, Telegram—still partially accessible—remains her “main source of information,” despite the proliferation of pro-Russian propaganda bot networks documented by the Atlantic Council.

Ihor, meanwhile, says that while access to the platform remains unstable even with a VPN (Virtual Private Network), he consults the Chinese social network TikTok, because “he can still find some information there.” TikTok is not officially banned in Russian-occupied Ukraine.

Interviewed by RSF, Svitlana Zalizetska, editor-in-chief of the Ukrainian media outlet RIA-PIVDEN, which is based in the free southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia and is in regular contact with occupied territories, confirms that communication is often “one-way.”

“People in Kremlin-controlled areas can call us, but not the other way around.”

The restrictions require constant adaptation.

“You have to keep looking for new messaging apps and establish communication rules that reflect the security reality,” the journalist summarises.

VPNs as a solution…

To circumvent restrictions, citizens are increasingly turning to VPNs , which mask users’ IP addresses and allow them to connect through servers beyond the reach of Russian censorship.

VPN downloads have surged. Google Trends, which tracks interest in search terms on Google, clearly shows this rush toward VPNs since the occupation began.

In the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts, VPN-related searches peaked as early as July 2022, precisely when occupation authorities were attempting to block access to VPN services in the former and to social media platforms in the latter. The most popular searches reflected the urgency of the situation: “download VPN” and “free VPN.”

In the Donetsk region, searches peaked in August 2024, when YouTube speeds were severely throttled following an administrative decision by Russian authorities.

…an unstable and risky solution

These VPNs, often downloaded from mainstream platforms such as Google Play, frequently function poorly because of ongoing restrictions.

“Recently, I found a new VPN. But it only works every other day,” Ihor reports.

Using a VPN is also increasingly risky. Since September 1, 2025, Moscow has intensified its crackdown on these tools.

Promoting VPNs now carries heavy fines: up to 80,000 rubles (approximately €950) for individuals and 500,000 rubles (nearly €6,000) for companies.

Using a VPN to access content that the Kremlin deems “extremist”—a category that includes many independent journalistic publications about the war—is also punishable by a fine of 5,000 rubles (approximately €60).

A more critical view of the digital space

Russia’s censorship and restrictions have heightened residents’ awareness of online security issues.

“I started paying more attention: two-factor authentication, checking account logins, and being cautious in general,” says Maryana.

Within this closed information environment, Max—the Russian messaging app aggressively promoted by the Kremlin to replace blocked services—has failed to gain trust.

“The reviews are very bad,” reports Ihor.

Whenever possible, residents “install it on a separate phone,” Maryana concludes.

A digital setback for the Kremlin.

*For security reasons, all witnesses have been given pseudonyms and the names of their cities are not disclosed.