On August 13, Roskomnadzor officially confirmed a partial restriction on calls via WhatsApp and Telegram after several days of mass complaints from users in Russia. According to Downdetector, the surge in reports began on August 12, with most complaints involving video calls. People trying to reach relatives in Russia from abroad also reported that connections either failed entirely or were too weak to sustain a conversation.
A day earlier, Ksenia Sobchak’s Telegram channel “Bloody Lady,” citing sources in the telecommunications sector, reported that the authorities had allegedly made a final decision to block calls in the two messengers. On the evening of the following day, Roskomnadzor confirmed the measure, saying foreign messengers had become key voice services used for fraud, extortion, and the recruitment of Russian citizens into sabotage and terrorist activity.
The Ministry of Digital Development said full access to calls could be restored only after WhatsApp and Telegram comply with Russian legal requirements. The publication links the move to a broader tightening of control over communications: this summer, the authorities already carried out large-scale mobile internet shutdowns and discussed introducing “white lists” of services that would remain accessible during shutdowns.
“This measure only brings losses to operators, because it will generate less traffic,” IT expert Mikhail Klimarev said, stressing that the final decision is made by Roskomnadzor rather than by the operators themselves.
Sources cited earlier by Forbes and Sobchak claimed that the largest mobile operators had asked for restrictions on calls in foreign messengers, hoping to shift traffic back to ordinary telephony and ease pressure from the security services. At the same time, a source in the industry quoted by Ostorozhno, Novosti said such reports came as a surprise to the operators themselves. The Nа Svyazi project told Agentstvo that the pattern of disruptions did not look accidental and could indicate testing of a blocking mechanism.
Cybersecurity experts advised users to rely on VPN services with obfuscation and Kill Switch functions to stay in touch, and, when necessary, to route calls through servers instead of P2P mode. As backup secure messaging tools, they named Signal, DeltaChat, Jami, Briar, and Bridgefy. They also noted that foreign SIM cards do not help bypass these restrictions, while Wi-Fi calling still depends on telecom operators and is therefore not considered a reliable alternative.