By Murad Rakhimov | 2026-02-25

Russia says it needs to cut your phone service to protect you from drones. The fine print says otherwise. A new law signed by Vladimir Putin on February 20 gives the Federal Security Service (FSB) the power to shut down all communications -- internet, mobile, calls, texts, even postal services -- whenever the president decides, for whatever reason he chooses, with no requirement to say why.

Out of range

The groundwork was laid in January, when the State Duma unanimously passed in a first reading a bill expanding the authority of the FSB. The document introduced amendments to the law on communications allowing companies to suspend phone, mobile and fixed-line internet services at the FSB's request, while shielding operators from liability for such outages.

At the time, operators would be required to stop services to "protect citizens and the state from security threats." Deputy minister of digital development Ivan Lebedev said outages would be governed by secret normative acts and stressed that restricting cellular networks was essential during drone attacks. He assured lawmakers restrictions would be applied only in circumstances of operational need and "without government overreach."

The bill moved quickly through parliament. On February 17, the State Duma passed it in its second and third readings in a single session -- the vote took roughly two minutes. Putin signed it into law on February 20.

The final version went further than the original. References to "security threats" were stripped out entirely, and the FSB's authority was upgraded from "requests" to binding "demands." The scope expanded to cover phone calls, texts and postal services. Conditions for invoking the law will be set by presidential decree, meaning Putin alone decides when and where communications can be cut, with no reason required.

Independent reporting also revealed the FSB had already been operating under a secret presidential decree authorizing such shutdowns since August 2025, suggesting the new law largely formalized powers already in use.

Ukraine . . . dot . . . ru

Large-scale internet shutdowns began last year and quickly became routine. May 2025 saw 69 incidents; by July there were a record 2,099 outages nationwide.

Disruptions have hit taxi, delivery and online banking services, sparking outcry from citizens. Russia recorded the highest number of internet shutdowns and the most severe online censorship worldwide in 2025.

In September 2025, the government drew up a "whitelist" of services -- state websites, Gosuslugi, Yandex, VKontakte, Odnoklassniki and several banks -- that would remain accessible even during blackouts.

In Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories, communications have been controlled since the annexation of Crimea in 2014, with residents gradually shifted to Russian operators as Ukrainian providers were squeezed out. In 2022, the New York Times reported that a subsea cable laid across the Kerch Strait allowed Russia to track digital traffic in the territories it controlled.

That same year, authorities rerouted data from Kherson through Russian networks, blocking Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Ukrainian news sites. In February 2023 the internet was shut down entirely in the so-called Luhansk People's Republic. Widespread disruptions hit the occupied Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions again in October–November 2025.

The war is just a pretext

Dmitry Dubrovsky, a lecturer at Charles University in Prague, said the moves have nothing to do with security.

"It's clear that the Russian courts are purely a formality. This is another anticonstitutional decision, and it's far from being the first one in modern Russia. The FSB has acquired a mechanism of arbitrary control that is leading to a total information blockade," Dubrovsky told Kontur.

Alexander Kim, a Russian blogger and rights activist, compared public reaction to a frog in boiling water -- too accustomed to gradual heat to notice it's being boiled.

"I don't believe that Russian society presents any danger to the Putin regime right now. There's no mass resistance. It doesn't make sense to talk about 'military censorship' because the war is more of a pretext and justification for restricting rights, not a genuine reason," Kim told Kontur.

Alisher Ilkhamov, director of the London-based Central Asia Due Diligence, connected the law to the Kremlin's need to manage a deteriorating picture -- on the battlefield and at home.

"Under these conditions, Chief of the General Staff [Valery] Gerasimov needs to lie to the public about the Russian military's successes. Someone following the actual events online can easily catch Gerasimov in the lie," Ilkhamov told Kontur.

With an economic decline expected this year, Ilkhamov believes public dissatisfaction will grow -- and the government is acting accordingly.

"Under these circumstances the government can maintain control over the population only by using repressive measures and limiting their access to information. The only question is how long these measures will produce an effect," he said.

The Committee to Protect Journalists had called on Russia to drop the legislation, warning it amounted to a "deliberate step toward further isolating internet users and journalists." With Putin's signature, those warnings went unheeded.