Russia is turning into a digital prison: WhatsApp messenger blocked on Russian territory

The WhatsApp messenger has been completely blocked in the Russian Federation, and the mobile service’s domain has disappeared from the DNS servers of Roskomnadzor.

This was reported by Russian media.

As noted, this means that the messenger domain was removed from the records of the National Domain Name System, created after the law on the “sovereign “Runet” came into force.

Currently, people in Russia cannot use the messenger without using a VPN.

It is worth noting that Roskomnadzor previously restricted the work of another messenger, Telegram. In particular, Russians complained about weapons, the Central Data Protection Office reported this the day before .

“Blocking Telegram logically fits into a large-scale campaign of digital repression that has been underway in the Russian Federation for a long time. Restricting Telegram’s work is another stage in Russia’s transformation into a digital prison, where the state controls all information on the network and even private online communication of citizens,” the center explained.

Recall, in October 2025 it became known that Russia began to partially restrict the work of the Telegram and WhatsApp messengers .

By the way, Putin instructed the Russian government to develop mechanisms to restrict the use of messengers and software from “unfriendly countries” by September 1, 2025 .

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