Telegram, WhatsApp, and other services suffer mass outage in Russia as authorities blame “cyberattack”

On August 21, Russian users reported widespread outages affecting Telegram, WhatsApp, the VK social network, and various other websites and apps.

Russian authorities attributed the disruptions to an alleged cyberattack. However, the incident occurred shortly after the Signal messaging app was blocked across the country earlier this month and comes at a time when rumors are circulating about a possible Kremlin plan to block YouTube.

The latest outages also impacted Wikipedia, the Yandex search engine, the Steam gaming platform, the Twitch streaming service, Skype, Discord, mobile operators, government websites, and multiple other services.

Downdetector, a service recording users' complaints about outages to online apps and services, recorded a spike in outages on August 21, though complaints about Telegram and WhatsApp had decreased by 3:30 p.m. local time.

Roskomnadzor, Russia's state communications watchdog and censorship agency, claimed the issues were caused by a large-scale DDoS attack, which they said was repelled by 3 p.m.

Comments on the Downdetector website indicated that Telegram also experienced outages in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, while WhatsApp issues were reported only by Russian users. Some noted that the services were accessible when using a VPN.

Mikhail Klimarev, director of the anti-censorship NGO Internet Protection Society («Общество защиты интернета»), commented that pulling off a DDoS attack affecting “all operators in Russia” would not be possible:

“Now let's think about how it was possible to organize a DDoS [attack] on all operators in the Russian Federation? I don't really understand how this is even possible. And then how can we explain that messengers and several other resources went down, while the rest (including VPNs, by the way) remained operational?”

Klimarev instead suggested that the Russian authorities might be attempting to block the messaging apps. He explained the outages in Central Asia by noting that network transit to those countries passes through Russia.

Telegram, founded by Russian-born businessman Pavel Durov and his brother Nikolai, is headquartered in the United Arab Emirates. WhatsApp, co-founded by Ukrainian-American entrepreneur Jan Koum, is owned by Facebook parent company Meta Platforms. These platforms remain among the few avenues available to Russian citizens looking to bypass government censorship amid an increasingly stringent crackdown on the country’s information space.

In 2022, Moscow notably designated WhatsApp's parent company, Meta Platforms, as an “extremist” organization — and Meta services like Facebook and Instagram were subsequently banned in Russia, though they can still be accessed through virtual private networks (VPNs).

Government efforts to suppress free speech — particularly information contradicting the Kremlin’s narrative about the ongoing war in Ukraine — have intensified in Russia since it unleashed its full-scale invasion in 2022.

Following Roskomnadzor's recent move to block Signal for alleged “violations” of Russian anti-terrorism legislation, rumors have circulated about plans to block WhatsApp as well. Meanwhile, YouTube has also experienced massive outages amid reports that the Russian government plans to block the platform entirely as soon as this fall — a decision that may have ramifications across the entire Runet, as detailed by The Insider in a recent piece.