Outages affected the daily life of millions of people across Russia. Payment terminals stopped working practically from minute to minute and no one was prepared for that.
According to The News International website, the situation quickly turned into chaos, which resembled a technological blackout rather than a targeted security measure.
According to Durov, the cause was the efforts of the Russian authorities to restrict access to VPN services, which people normally use to bypass state internet blocking. “Their blocking attempts triggered a massive failure of the banking system,” he said on Telegram.
Photo: Anastasia Barashkova, Reuters
Russians felt the collapse of the banks on their own skin on Friday.
According to Reuters, the effects were immediately visible. In the Moscow metro, employees had to open the turnstiles and let passengers in for free, because the payment system simply did not work. Similar problems were also reported by shops and services – some businesses switched to cash only, others had to limit operations completely.
The Kremlin did not officially comment on the situation. According to Durov, however, it is evident that Moscow’s interventions affected the key infrastructure in such a way that the entire digital payment ecosystem collapsed.
Photo: Albert Gea, Reuters
Pavel Durov
Durov commented on the situation with exaggeration, but at the same time sharply critical. “Welcome back to the digital resistance, my Russian brothers and sisters. The entire nation is now being mobilized to circumvent these absurd restrictions,” he wrote.
How do VPN applications work?
The English term virtual private network is hidden under the abbreviation VPN. It is a technological solution, thanks to which the user can connect to any Internet pages, even though they are blocked in the given location. For example, the user may be in the Czech Republic, but his computer looks as if he were in the USA.
VPN essentially creates a virtual tunnel across the Internet, thanks to which people can access content that would otherwise be inaccessible in their country. At the same time, the service ensures the user’s anonymity.
It’s no wonder that right after various social networks, VPN applications are among the most downloaded in the world.
Young Russians are collapsing from internet outages
In recent weeks, Internet outages in Russia have increasingly affected the daily life of residents and are causing growing frustration. The most sensitive problems are in big cities, including Moscow, where mobile connection has been regularly restricted since the beginning of March.
At the same time, a malfunctioning Internet does not mean only slower page loading. In a number of cases, normal services that people are used to stop working – from navigation to taxi applications to payment terminals. Situations where people cannot pay for basic things are no exception.
At the end of March, the Nexta agency already published videos of young Russians who are already up to their necks in the unavailability of the global computer network. “Why the hell is Sberbank not working? I don’t understand why… Why some stupid messenger is working and why the bank’s app is not available. I need to pay for food!” a visibly upset woman from Russia shared her experience, whose video was shared by the Nexta agency.
According to available information, the outages do not only concern Moscow. They are also reported by other large cities, including St. Petersburg, and in some regions they have been repeating for almost a year. The problems affect not only ordinary users, but also companies that depend on online services – from restaurants to courier services, the Guardian server pointed out.
It is about security, the Kremlin claims
Russian authorities explain the situation with security reasons, for example protection against drone attacks. But critics point out that the restrictions are also appearing in areas far from the front and may be part of a wider strategy to strengthen control over the Internet and limit access to information.
This corresponds to the long-term trend. In recent years, Russia has been blocking foreign platforms, restricting the use of VPNs and promoting its own digital services. There are also concerns about the future of the so-called “sovereign Internet”, which would be more isolated from the rest of the world.
Outages also have significant economic impacts. According to estimates, they cause losses in the order of millions per day and complicate the functioning of even state institutions. But for ordinary people, they primarily mean going back a few years.
How can states block parts of the internet?
Popular services such as Twitter or Facebook, but also private e-mail boxes, or even the entire content of the Internet can be blocked practically at any time.
“The Internet is a huge network connecting computers all over the world. When someone wanted to block selected websites or services, they would have to force the largest central Internet providers to do so,” computer expert Václav Vaněček told Novinkám.
Internet providers in countries such as China or Iran will receive an order from the state to which sites they should prevent people from accessing. They must enter commands into their routers – devices that take care of connecting individual parts of the Internet – that will prevent people from accessing this.
VPN services that create virtual tunnels across the Internet can also be blocked in the same way.
