‘Total chaos’: The Kremlin knows Russians are angry about new Internet restrictions. It’s struggling to respond.
As mobile Internet blackouts spread from Russia’s regions to Moscow and the authorities continue throttling Telegram, opinion polls paint an uncomfortable picture for the Kremlin. Eighty-three percent of teenagers have reacted negatively to the shutdowns. Pro-government pollsters have avoided publishing analogous survey data on adult Russians, not wanting to draw attention to the scale of the discontent. Meanwhile, the security services pushing for the blocks have faced virtually no resistance from the politicians who privately oppose them. Meduza spoke with sources inside the Kremlin, regional governments, and the Putin administration’s political team to find out why.
‘Anger,’ ‘shock,’ and ‘hatred’
“Telegram isn’t even the point anymore — it’s just one piece of a much broader wave of shutdowns,” a regional official in Russia’s Central Federal District told Meduza. “Now Moscow is dealing with the same thing we are [out in the regions]. Some people are even gloating: we’ve had to put up with it, and now you can too.” Outages happen regularly where he lives, he said, because of repeated drone strikes, so shutdowns are imposed again and again.
In March 2026, as mobile Internet blackouts reached Moscow and Telegram began to face serious disruption, the polling firm Russian Field surveyed 1,000 teenagers aged 14–17. One of the contributors to the study was Alexander Asafov, an analyst at the Kremlin-linked think tank EISI and a prospective United Russia candidate in September’s State Duma elections.
According to the survey, Internet restrictions triggered “anger” in 46 percent of teenagers, “crying” in 15 percent, “confusion or irritation” in 14 percent, “disgust and hatred” in 7 percent, and “shock” in 6 percent. In total, 83 percent of respondents reacted negatively.
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“This isn’t just true for teenagers. Yes, if you look at the country as a whole, the numbers would be lower because of older generations. But it’s still a clear majority against,” a source close to the Putin administration told Meduza, citing internal polling and focus groups.
The teenage survey, according to this source, was commissioned by the administration’s political team to use loyal media to “send a signal” — both to the broader public and to senior officials — that the Kremlin is aware of and actively tracking the growing discontent. The focus on teenagers was deliberate, the source added, to “avoid unnecessary friction with the security services that are pushing for the restrictions.” “This is already a protest-prone audience when it comes to the Internet,” he said, meaning a negative reaction from teenagers was expected and, in that sense, safe to surface.
Two sources close to the Putin administration say that pro-government pollsters and media outlets have avoided publishing survey results among adult Russians, not wanting to “draw attention to the scale of discontent.” The scale can still be inferred from earlier Russian Field polling conducted in August 2025: at the time, 71 percent of Russians opposed blocking Telegram, and 70 percent opposed blocking WhatsApp.
The elephant in the room
Opposition to the restrictions is highest in large cities, especially those with a million or more residents, a source close to the Putin administration acknowledged. This is because so many essential services there depend on mobile Internet: payment terminals, taxis, digital government services. “Sometimes a coffee shop’s register just won’t work. That used to happen to me in Sochi — now it happens in Moscow. It’s fucking bad for business,” he said.
In early March, Kommersant estimated losses to Moscow businesses from Internet shutdowns at 3–5 billion rubles ($37–61 million), with small and medium-sized enterprises hit hardest.
“Large companies that already dealt with restrictions in the regions have had time to set up backup communication channels and adapt. Meanwhile, 50–70 percent of Internet traffic in Russia comes from mobile devices, and the sectors hit hardest include courier services, taxis, car-sharing, and retail businesses that depend on POS terminals,” business consultant Sergey Kudryashov told the outlet.
A Moscow official, however, insists that “all popular services” are on “whitelists” and continue to function during shutdowns — and that entrepreneurs “have not filed complaints” with the mayor’s office.
According to the regional official from the Central Federal District, dependence on online services is lower outside the capital. But even in the regions, he said, the everyday disruptions caused by shutdowns will lead to “accumulating fatigue and negativity.”
Officials have said little about the supposed benefits of the restrictions beyond vague appeals to “security” and the fight against fraud and Ukrainian drones. Even that messaging has backfired: State Duma deputy Andrey Svintsov from the far-right Liberal Democratic Party of Russia publicly praised Roskomnadzor’s campaign against Telegram — and was stripped of his party mandate for “actions damaging the party’s reputation.” “He just wouldn’t stop talking about a toxic issue,” a source in the United Russia apparatus told Meduza.
Pro-Kremlin media have handled the topic gingerly. A segment on Channel One offered viewers “lifehacks,” such as that they should carry cash, find cafes with Wi-Fi, and hail taxis on the street. Rossiyskaya Gazeta and RIA Novosti emphasized the “positive effects” of the restrictions, floating the idea that Telegram’s absence could benefit domestic platforms. Vedomosti even ran a column extolling the virtues of a “digital detox.”
In August 2025, a political consultant close to the Putin administration told Meduza that if popular messaging apps began working only intermittently, people would switch en masse to VPNs. He now admits he keeps a VPN running constantly, where before he used it only a few times a day. “At this point, I don’t even know what’s blocked and what isn’t — I just leave it on all the time,” he said with a laugh.
Another Meduza source — a senior regional official — said he also uses circumvention tools constantly, as do “all his acquaintances.” His region’s governor, he added, continues to run a Telegram channel. “Obviously, he or his press service posts using a VPN.”
Falling approval ratings
A source close to the Kremlin and a sociologist working with the Putin administration’s political team both describe the public dissatisfaction with the restrictions as “serious” and “widespread” — but doubt it will translate into large-scale protests, if only because people know they would be forcefully dispersed. “Very few people are willing to take that kind of risk over everyday conveniences like mobile Internet and Telegram,” the sociologist said.
Meanwhile, according to polling by the Kremlin-aligned VTsIOM, United Russia’s rating has fallen by 4 percentage points since mid-January — from 34.8 percent to 30.6 percent — while approval of Vladimir Putin’s performance has dropped nearly 6 points, from 77.8 percent to 72 percent.
The political consultant working with the administration told Meduza it’s difficult to isolate the restrictions’ contribution to those declines: “There’s too much else going on — from constant price increases to growing war fatigue. It’s hard to say how much of it comes specifically from the shutdowns.”
Some activists are nonetheless trying to organize protests against the restrictions, even as street politics in Russia is effectively banned. Among them are Dmitry Kisiev, a former aide to anti-war politician Boris Nadezhdin, and an anonymous movement called “Scarlet Swan,” which emerged in mid-March and is suspected of having ties to the security services. Organizers are urging people to attend only authorized events; so far, just two rallies have been approved nationwide.
In late February, RBC and The Bell, citing their own sources, named April 1 as a possible date for a full Telegram shutdown. Two sources close to the Putin administration told Meduza that no specific date has been discussed internally.
“April 1 was probably floated to push people who were hesitating to switch to [state-backed messenger] Max. In reality, the blocking started three weeks earlier,” one source said. “Completely blocking Telegram isn’t easy. They failed in 2018. They have more tools now, but those tools aren’t unlimited. Telegram likely has ways to resist.”
Letting it happen
The main lobbyists for blocking Telegram, according to both sources close to the administration, are the security services. The Kremlin’s political team supported restrictions and an eventual full shutdown — but only after the next round of State Duma elections. The hesitation isn’t only about unpopularity with voters: messaging apps are central to political mobilization, and the presidential administration and other state bodies run networks of Telegram channels used to spread favorable narratives and disinformation. By Agentstvo’s count, 86 Russian governors — including ones in occupied Ukrainian territories — have Telegram channels; on Max, there are 87.
Even so, neither the administration’s political team, headed by Sergey Kiriyenko, nor its communications team, overseen by Alexey Gromov, has seriously pushed back against the security services. The political consultant working with the administration said the issue simply isn’t worth a fight for either man.
“Kiriyenko also has a son working at VKontakte [which stands to benefit from Telegram being blocked]. And he doesn’t like looking like he’s lost — he’ll make sure he’s seen as one of the main supporters of the move,” the consultant said.
Officials may not fully grasp the scale of public frustration because they don’t experience it themselves, according to a source at a major consulting firm that works with the Kremlin’s political team. Most large organizations have remote servers that allow unrestricted Internet access.
“Inside companies, this problem is solved: most have remote servers that allow unrestricted Internet access. The argument is simple — it’s necessary for work. You come into the office and everything works. So when someone talks about how everything is falling apart outside, the response is usually: you can put up with it for the hour it takes to get home,” the source explained.
An employee at a major state research center confirmed that internal systems provide access to blocked services: “Everything runs smoothly on a work computer — no issues with Telegram.” Mobile Internet, though, is “a mess”: “The whitelists clearly aren’t fully configured. Yesterday nothing worked for me inside the Third Ring Road, but a friend walking around the city center had everything working. It’s total chaos.”
The political consultant working with the administration called restoring Internet access before the elections “a smart tactical move”: “Cutting taxes in this economic situation is probably impossible. But this would be a literally free way to improve people’s lives — after making them worse themselves.”
He thinks it’s unlikely, though. “The people who pushed for this are unlikely to agree to roll it back.” And even if they did, he added, the effect on election results would be hard to measure amid the noise of a worsening economy, rising prices, and four years of war.