admin The immediate impact was visible across Moscow and beyond. Reuters reported that the capital’s metro turnstiles at one point let passengers pass without payment, while shops and petrol stations asked customers to use cash. A zoo in Belgorod also said card payment systems were down. Sberbank, the country’s biggest lender, acknowledged a technical problem and later said services had been restored, but did not explain the cause. The central bank did not comment publicly on the disruption.
Durov, writing on Telegram on April 4, said the payment-system failure had been caused by attempts to block VPNs. He cast the episode as evidence that restrictions aimed at curbing access to banned or throttled services were colliding with ordinary commercial infrastructure. He also declared that tens of millions of Russians were resisting what he described as digital controls, reviving the language of “digital resistance” that has long been associated with efforts to evade censorship. His account has not been independently confirmed by the authorities, and Moscow has yet to provide a full public explanation for the outage.
What is clear is that the outage came in the middle of a sharp escalation in Russia’s campaign to narrow access to independent digital channels. Digital Development Minister Maksut Shadayev said on March 31 that the state’s task was to reduce VPN use, while seeking to limit the effect on users. Reuters reported that more than 400 VPNs had been blocked by mid-January, about 70 per cent more than at the end of 2025. Officials have also jammed mobile internet, slowed Telegram and blocked WhatsApp, presenting the measures as necessary for national security as Russia faces drone attacks and what it says are sabotage threats backed by Western intelligence.
The campaign against Telegram has been building for weeks. Reuters reported in late February that authorities were weighing a full block on the messaging app from early April. Russian officials have argued that Telegram is used for illegal and extremist content and have alleged that hostile intelligence services penetrated the platform, claims the company denies. Durov has said Moscow is throttling Telegram in order to push users towards MAX, a state-backed messenger that the Kremlin is promoting as part of a wider drive for what it calls digital sovereignty.
That push towards MAX is becoming one of the most politically sensitive parts of the digital clampdown. Reuters reported on April 3 that the Kremlin was aggressively promoting the app as a “national messenger”, while many users interviewed in Moscow said they were reluctant to install it or intended to use it as little as possible. Some said the service was being imposed through practical necessity, including verification linked to the Gosuslugi state services portal. Others argued that installing an app should remain a personal choice, not an administrative obligation.
The payment failure has therefore landed at a delicate moment for the authorities. Russia’s argument is that tighter control over communications is a wartime security requirement. Critics counter that the state is testing how far it can isolate the domestic internet while steering users away from foreign platforms and into systems it can shape more directly. Even among citizens who are not politically engaged, the burden is becoming harder to ignore when restrictions interfere with basic services such as messaging, transport entry and bank transfers.
