Moscow cuts mobile internet ahead of Victory Day parade security fears

Mobile internet went dark across much of Moscow on Tuesday, leaving calls working in many areas but cutting off the apps that now handle banking, taxis and messaging for millions of residents. The disruption came ahead of the May 9 Victory Day parade, as the Kremlin tightened security around a holiday that has become both a public ritual and a wartime risk.

The shutdown exposed how far Moscow’s security posture has shifted under the pressure of Ukraine’s drone campaign. The Kremlin said the restrictions were meant to ensure security amid a heightened risk of Ukrainian drone attacks, while Russian authorities kept the capital on alert after a night in which the Defense Ministry said it had shot down 289 Ukrainian drones. Ukraine also hit one of Russia’s biggest oil refineries in Kirishi, in the Leningrad region, setting off a fire.

In central Moscow, six reporters found that mobile internet was unavailable on their phones while calls still worked in many areas. Mobile operators warned customers to expect service problems over the coming days. Sberbank cautioned users about possible disruptions to mobile internet and messaging, and Yandex’s taxi unit warned that online ride ordering could be affected. Complaint-monitoring sites reported similar problems in Moscow, St. Petersburg and other parts of European Russia.

The outage was not an isolated technical glitch. Human Rights Watch said Russian authorities had blocked mobile internet and cellular access in parts of Moscow and St. Petersburg for almost three weeks, and that police detained at least 14 people at a peaceful protest against internet restrictions in Moscow on March 29, along with five more in other cities. Chatham House said partial blackouts had hit central Moscow and St. Petersburg since early March, disrupting cashless payments, bank transfers, taxi apps, courier services and navigation. The pattern has pushed millions of Russians toward VPNs and sharpened accusations that the shutdowns serve domestic control as much as battlefield security.

That tension sits at the heart of this year’s Victory Day ceremony. The May 9 parade will go forward without military vehicles for the first time since 2007, and the Russian Defense Ministry said it would exclude hardware and cadets because of the “current operational situation.” The scaled-back display marks a sharp contrast with last year’s 80th-anniversary parade, which featured more than 11,500 troops, over 180 military vehicles and more than two dozen world leaders, including Xi Jinping and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Victory Day remains Moscow’s most potent secular holiday, anchored in the Soviet Union’s loss of 27 million people in World War II. Putin has announced a two-day ceasefire around the celebrations, and Ukraine has offered its own counter-proposal, underscoring how a parade on Red Square has become part of the wider military contest, and how the Kremlin’s control over information now reaches into daily civilian life.