Russia is turning off mobile internet for an unspecified but prolonged period in Crimea amid concerns of sweeping internet shutdowns in the occupied territories of Ukraine.
The anti-occupation civil resistance movement “Yellow Ribbon” wrote on Telegram on Tuesday: “The occupiers are going to turn off mobile internet in Crimea for more than a week… They say that they will turn it off for a long time – it has already been several days, so we think it will be for a week plus.”
“The Russians can also centrally slow down the WiFi, because the providers are under their control,” the channel added.
On Aug. 6, the Foreign Intelligence Service of Ukraine (SZRU) released a statement alleging that Russia is preparing the occupied territories of Ukraine, including Crimea, for an internet shutdown.
“Formally, this is explained by ‘security considerations’ and ‘prevention of cyber sabotage,’ but in reality it is part of a broader strategy to integrate Crimea into Russia’s information control and censorship system, as well as to isolate it from both the Ukrainian and global information space,” the SZRU wrote.
Internet restrictions have also been observed in the temporarily occupied territories of Zaporizhzhia, Luhansk, Donetsk and Kherson regions, per the statement.
It came after Ukraine’s National Resistance Center flagged that Russia was deploying a “digital blockade” on Crimea at the start of August.
Internet shutdowns are an increasingly important tool for the Kremlin to silence dissenting voices and tighten its grip over the circulation of information online, and they have been seen both domestically and in the occupied territories.
According to the digital monitoring project Na Svyazi, Russian authorities enacted over 2,000 localized Internet shutdowns and restrictions in July, tripling the figure from June.
According to data studied by Access Now, an NGO that focuses on digital and civil rights, Russia had the fourth-highest number of digital shutdowns globally in 2024, including seven cross-border shutdowns in Ukraine.
There are also fears that Russia is attempting to curtail online communications through a crackdown on messaging apps.
On Monday, The Moscow Times reported that users in Russia had experienced problems making voice and video calls via WhatsApp and Telegram, reportedly amid government tests of blocking the apps’ call functions.
The SZRU said in a statement on Monday that major Russian mobile operators MTS, Megafon, Beeline and T2 had called on the Kremlin to block voice calls on foreign messaging apps due to rising costs caused by sanctions, equipment shortages and increased mobile traffic.
Russian lawmakers are reportedly mulling a ban on the popular messaging apps after Anton Gorelkin, deputy head of the IT committee in Russia’s State Duma, warned that WhatsApp should “prepare to leave the Russian market.”
Gorelkin also described Telegram, owned by Russian-born Pavel Durov, as “an entity that worries the state,” though he previously denied that it would be banned.