How One Correspondent Stays Online Amid Russia's Growing Internet Blackouts

New York Times international correspondent Valerie Hopkins has been reporting from Moscow as the only NYT journalist working inside Russia, navigating conditions that have deteriorated dramatically in 2026. Residents of Moscow, St. Petersburg, and other Russian cities are finding that their smartphones have been dumbed down amid an unprecedented shutdown of the mobile internet, forcing correspondents, locals, and businesses to scramble for alternative ways to stay connected.

A City Cut Off

In March 2026, the mobile internet was completely blocked in most parts of Moscow Central, leaving Muscovites unable to access banking and transport services online, with some resorting to using walkie-talkies and pagers. The scale of disruption was unlike anything Moscow had experienced before. Residents reported that mobile internet access varied from neighborhood to neighborhood, disappearing unpredictably and without any notice. Both internet and cellular service in the central Basmanny district stopped working, with one resident saying she could not even make a call or send an SMS.

The outages spread from Moscow to Saint Petersburg during a wave of disruptions across Russia, with pagers, walkie-talkies, and portable radios reportedly flying off the shelves of Moscow after the city's roughly 13 million residents were hit with week-long internet disruptions. Some believe Russia may be trialling a system that only allows access to government-approved websites.

On March 11, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said that "all recent connection and internet restrictions in Moscow were introduced in accordance with Russia's legal framework and aim at ensuring the safety of Russian citizens," adding the measures would remain in place "as long as necessary."

Wi-Fi Is the Lifeline

One critical distinction separates Russia's shutdowns from those seen elsewhere: unlike in Iran, where authorities have imposed a sweeping blackout, the internet is not completely curtailed in Russia. In the capital and elsewhere, Russians can still access it via Wi-Fi. This gap has become the primary workaround for journalists and residents alike. Cafes, hotel lobbies, and fixed broadband connections remain partially available, making physical location a central factor in whether anyone, including a foreign correspondent, can file a story on deadline.

Some Russians have responded with viral internet humor, with social media flooded with jokes and memes about sending letters by carrier pigeons. But for working journalists, the situation is anything but comedic.

The VPN Arms Race

For years, VPNs have been the go-to tool for anyone in Russia trying to reach blocked platforms. That window is closing fast. In February 2026, Roskomnadzor confirmed that it had blocked 469 VPN services used to overcome internet censorship. Since December 2025, the authorities have been blocking the three most popular VPN protocols.

By mid-January 2026, data from Kommersant suggested Roskomnadzor had already restricted more than 400 VPN services in Russia, representing a 70% increase compared to autumn 2025. The crackdown is not slowing: Russia's digital minister announced on March 31, 2026 that the country would further clamp down on VPNs, which are used by millions of Russians to get around internet controls and censorship.

Russia's 2026 censorship playbook demonstrates a new phase in digital control, one where VPNs are actively hunted with AI-enhanced systems instead of being passively throttled through simple blocks. Roskomnadzor confirmed it was taking measures to thwart VPN services at the protocol level, meaning tools that were working last month may suddenly stop. Staying ahead of that curve requires constantly switching services and protocols as each one gets identified and shut down.

What's Already Gone

The VPN crackdown sits on top of an already sweeping list of blocked platforms. As well as banning many social media platforms, Russia blocks calling features on messenger apps such as WhatsApp and Telegram. YouTube, Instagram, Signal, Discord, and Facebook have already been banned.

The country's most popular messaging app, Telegram, is reportedly being fully blocked from April 1, 2026, cutting off access for those without a VPN. WhatsApp has already been completely banned. In February 2026, internet censorship experts noted that domains of at least 13 websites, including YouTube, WhatsApp, Facebook, The Moscow Times, and RFE/RL, disappeared from the national DNS registry, meaning users see that such websites do not exist when trying to connect to them via Russia's national DNS.

The State Alternative: Max

The Kremlin has tried to steer people toward a state-backed alternative known as MAX, created by the state-controlled company VK. Some fear it could be used for surveillance. Officials have been urging Russians to switch to the MAX messenger, an app widely believed to be monitored by the Federal Security Service (FSB). For a journalist reporting on the Kremlin, routing communications through an FSB-adjacent platform is not a viable option.

The Bigger Picture: Sovereign Internet

The outages are part of Moscow's broader campaign to cut off independent sources of information and horizontal networks of communication, designed to protect the regime from civil unrest and weed out foreign influences. In what has been cast by diplomats as Russia's "great crackdown," the authorities have repeatedly blocked mobile internet and jammed major messenger services while giving sweeping powers to cut off mass communications.

Human rights groups have voiced concern that the state is building a "sovereign internet," a closed digital ecosystem under tight government oversight. The infrastructure to enforce it, Roskomnadzor's ability to block content directly at the network level rather than relying on telecom operators, has made the agency what one cyber lawyer described as a "super-regulator."

For those hoping to circumvent censorship, the options are narrowing. The combination of protocol-level VPN blocking, platform bans, a national DNS that erases foreign sites from its index, and repeated mobile shutdowns means that staying online in Moscow in 2026 requires not one workaround, but a constantly updated stack of them. For Hopkins and the small number of foreign journalists still based inside Russia, maintaining that stack is now as central to the job as any interview or source call.