Major outages and disruptions to Internet connections in Russia will continue “as long as necessary,” the Kremlin said Wednesday, which it says is necessary to counter increasingly sophisticated attacks attributed to Ukraine.
Major disruptions to Internet connections in Russia will continue. PHOTO: Shutterstock
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the Russian authorities imposed technological measures to protect the security of citizens, in the context of “the Kiev regime is using increasingly sophisticated methods for attacks.”
“Systemic measures regarding internet connections were taken in strict compliance with the law,” the official said at the daily press conference.
Connectivity issues were particularly felt on mobile devices. According to Agence France-Presse, Internet access difficulties were not only reported in Moscow, but also in other regions of the country, including hundreds of kilometers away from the capital.
In recent weeks, the Russian authorities also blocked access to two of the most popular messaging applications, WhatsApp and Telegram, on the grounds that they would violate national legislation.
In parallel, Moscow is promoting a national communication application, MAX, developed by the Russian company VK, presented as a platform that could integrate public services and online commerce.
Unlike other messaging applications, MAX does not offer end-to-end encryption, technology that allows messages to be read only by the sender and recipient. Kremlin critics warn that restrictions on Western platforms and the promotion of the domestic application could strengthen the authorities' control over the Internet and turn the platform into a tool for population surveillance.
