This was Russia today Wednesday, February 11, 2026

Howdy, folks. Today, we’re looking at the worrying but underwhelming force of Russia’s National Domain Name System “kill switch.” Read on for news about Chinese auto middlemen, Moscow’s New START offer, NATO’s “Arctic Sentry” mission, and Russia’s diplomatic pivot to Africa. Yours, Kevin.

YouTube disappeared from Russia’s DNS records alongside WhatsApp, Facebook, and the free press, but the Kremlin’s “kill switch” isn’t working

On Tuesday, Russian media reported that YouTube had been completely blocked in Russia after a year and a half of throttling, but Meduza’s investigation reveals that the reality is far messier. While the video platform’s domain disappeared from Russia’s National Domain Name System (DNS) records, the blocking method proved ineffective, with YouTube remaining accessible via alternative DNS servers. Meduza also found that at least 13 other platforms — including WhatsApp, Facebook, and several independent media outlets — were quietly removed from Russia’s National DNS in what appears to be the first documented case of mass DNS record deletion. And the theory that Roskomnadzor deleted YouTube to free up resources for throttling Telegram? There’s no confirmation of that either.

Despite Russia’s “sovereign Internet” law requiring Internet providers to use the National DNS, it remains unclear how this infrastructure is utilized in practice. While DNS servers controlled by the federal censor, Roskomnadzor, have stopped returning correct addresses for youtube.com, data from outage-tracking sites show only a modest uptick in complaints — nothing indicating a major nationwide disruption. Moreover, YouTube remains accessible through alternative Russian DNS servers and VPN services, casting doubt on whether the state’s “kill switch” is functioning properly. Google reported no infrastructure issues on its end.

The timing of YouTube’s removal from Russia’s National DNS records coincided with a new round of Telegram throttling, leading some experts to theorize that Roskomnadzor is reallocating resources from one platform to another. However, the Na Svyazi project, which monitors Internet restrictions in Russia, found that 13 other resources have also been removed from the National DNS — including Deutsche Welle, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Instagram, Facebook, and two WhatsApp domains. This marks the first documented case of mass DNS record deletion, though it’s nearly impossible to determine exactly when or why any particular domain disappeared from Russia’s National DNS records.

So far, YouTube’s removal from the National Domain Name System has not led to a complete block. It appears instead to be just another tool in Roskomnadzor’s arsenal for restricting Russians’ access to information. Fortunately, this method remains easy to circumvent with VPN software.

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News you don’t want to miss today

🚗 Foreign cars flow to Russia as China skirts sanctions 🇨🇳

Tens of thousands of Western vehicles are reaching Russian drivers through Chinese middlemen, defying Western sanctions and corporate exits.

• A gray-market shuffle: As manufacturers attempt to block unauthorized exports, Chinese traders are registering new vehicles as “used” to evade compliance checks, fueling a trade that has seen the number of China-made foreign cars in Russia double since 2023. | Reuters

🕊️ Russia vows to respect nuclear caps if U.S. follows suit 🇺🇸

The Kremlin has confirmed it will abide by the warhead limits of the now-expired New START treaty, contingent on Washington maintaining the same restrictions.

• A provisional pause: Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told lawmakers that Moscow sees no evidence the U.S. plans to breach the limits immediately, effectively extending the status quo while the Trump administration seeks a new agreement. | Associated Press

🔱 NATO launches Arctic mission to counter Russian military buildup ⚓

The alliance has launched “Arctic Sentry,” a new campaign to increase its presence in the Arctic and High North and to track Russian nuclear-capable submarines before they can vanish into the Atlantic. The mission is a direct response to 33 Russian maneuvers since early 2025.

• A northern front: While melting ice opens new shipping lanes for China and Russia, the NATO mission also aims to reassure the Trump administration about regional security, specifically addressing concerns about defending Greenland. | The New York Times

🕊️ Russia redirects diplomats to Africa following Western expulsions 🌍

Moscow is aggressively pivoting its diplomatic resources to the Global South, redeploying personnel forced out of Europe to staff a dozen reopened embassies across Africa.

• A strategic shuffle: Lavrov confirmed that 90 percent of the diplomats slashed from missions in the U.K. and Europe have been reassigned to African destinations. The move comes after Western nations expelled hundreds of Russian officials in response to the invasion of Ukraine. | Bloomberg

🇱🇻 A new law in Latvia is forcing Russian and Belarusian workers out of hospitals, railways, and power companies — with no severance and no exceptions | Even after mastering the Latvian language and securing medical licenses, at least one Russian physician is being blocked by security services that refuse to grant the law’s theoretical exemptions, effectively banning him from his career.

🕊️ Russia keeps citing a ‘spirit of Anchorage’ from last summer’s Trump–Putin summit, but that term exists only in Moscow’s vocabulary | Kremlin officials are deploying this unilateral rhetorical device to imply Washington secretly agreed to Russian territorial conquests in Ukraine, even as the Trump administration continues to impose sanctions and views the meeting merely as part of its standard transactional negotiation process.

🇪🇪 A warning from Estonia: Russia’s economy is spiraling downward, but Moscow is still stockpiling for the ‘next war’ | The annual intelligence assessment concludes that while an attack on NATO is currently unlikely, Moscow is actively courting the Global South and China to undermine Western influence while restructuring its armed forces with specialized drone units.

🪖 Ukraine races to defend a key Zaporizhzhia stronghold as a second Russian offensive gathers force in Donbas. Meduza analyzes the latest battlefield developments. | Russian forces have established a bridgehead across the Haichur River to threaten the logistics hub of Orikhiv, while simultaneous multi-pronged assaults on Pokrovsk, Kostiantynivka, and Sloviansk attempt to stretch Ukrainian reserves to the breaking point.

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