When a fire broke out in March in a shopping center a few minutes’ walk from the Kremlin, one of Russia’s scrappy Telegram news channels sent a reporter to the scene.

3月，克里姆林宫步行几分钟外的一家购物中心发生火灾时，俄罗斯一家以敢拼著称的Telegram新闻频道派了一名记者赶赴现场。

There was one problem. Mobile data was completely down in the center of Moscow, and Telegram, the most popular app in the country, was being throttled.

但出现了一个问题。莫斯科市中心的移动数据完全中断，而该国最流行的应用程序Telegram也被限流。

“It was like 1997,” said Sergei Titov, the editor of the channel, Ostorozhno Novosti, who recounted how the reporter, unable to send photos or videos, called the outlet’s landline to narrate — “three fire engines, two ambulances, many people running.”

“就像回到了1997年，”这个名叫“Ostorozhno Novosti”的新闻频道主编谢尔盖·季托夫说。他回忆道，由于无法发回照片或视频，派到前方的记者只能打编辑部的座机电话进行口述——“三辆消防车，两辆救护车，很多人在奔跑。”

The dayslong outage in the most important part of Moscow crystallized fears that President Vladimir Putin would go further than Russians imagined to cut them off from the world and interrupt their lives as he brings the nation’s internet fully under Kremlin control.

这起持续数天、发生在莫斯科最重要区域的断网事件加剧了人们的担忧：总统普京可能会采取比俄罗斯人想象的更进一步的措施，将他们与外界隔绝，并在把该国的互联网完全置于克里姆林宫控制之下的过程中，打乱他们的日常生活。

Russians in recent weeks have faced two disruptions at once. Authorities, armed with new technical capabilities and wartime pretexts, have been pulling the plug on the mobile internet in certain places. They have also been blocking ever more foreign apps used by millions of Russians.

最近几周，俄罗斯人面临两重中断。当局凭借新的技术能力和战时借口在特定区域关闭移动互联网。同时，他们也在屏蔽越来越多被数百万俄罗斯人使用的外国应用程序。

1月，遭围困的乌克兰康斯坦丁尼夫卡市，一名乌克兰步兵。俄罗斯以战争为借口在国内打压互联网自由。

The government has cited security reasons for the internet outages, calling them precautions against Ukrainian drone attacks that use Russian mobile networks for targeting. But experts say the government is also conducting the sort of targeted blackouts that it would impose in the event of unrest, like the mass demonstrations that swept Iran this year.

政府称断网是出于安全考量，称这是为防范利用俄罗斯移动网络进行定位的乌克兰无人机袭击所采取的预防措施。但专家指出，政府也在实施定向断网措施，这种手段通常发生在社会动荡时期，比如今年席卷伊朗的大规模示威期间。

Even bolder, in the eyes of many Russians, is Putin’s assault on Telegram. Having blocked Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and YouTube, the Russian leader is now moving to hobble an app that more than 100 million Russians use every month to communicate and read news, including from exiled outlets banned in Russia.

在许多俄罗斯人看来，普京对Telegram的打击更为激进。在封锁了Facebook、Instagram、WhatsApp和YouTube之后，这位俄罗斯领导人现在又采取行动，削弱一款每月有超过1亿俄罗斯人用于通信和阅读新闻的应用（包括阅读来自被俄罗斯封禁的流亡媒体的新闻）。

Moscow is pressuring Russians instead to use a new Kremlin-approved “super app” known as MAX. Russian media outlets have reported that Moscow plans to block Telegram fully starting Wednesday, but signs have emerged that they could delay the move amid a public backlash.

与此同时，莫斯科方面正迫使俄罗斯人改用一款经克里姆林宫批准的“超级应用”——MAX。有俄罗斯媒体报道称，当局计划从周三起全面封锁Telegram，但有迹象显示，由于引发公众反弹，当局可能会推迟这一行动。

Of all the examples of growing repression in Russia during four years of war in Ukraine, few have touched more people than the internet restrictions.

在乌克兰战争持续的四年间，俄罗斯日益加剧的种种压制手段中，几乎没有哪一项像互联网限制举措那样影响到如此多的人。

The on-again, off-again blackouts and blockages have caused havoc as the digital services that power everyday life have flickered in and out, forcing people into a frustrating hunt for workarounds.

时断时续的断网和封锁造成了严重混乱，支撑日常生活的数字服务时有时无，迫使人们费尽周折寻找替代方案。

When the mobile internet went out in parts of Moscow, people started paying in cash. With taxi apps rendered useless, some hitched rides in passing cars. Sales of walkie-talkies, analog telephone lines, paper maps and old-school MP3 players spiked online. Even in the halls of the Kremlin, officials returned to using landlines.

当莫斯科部分地区的移动互联网中断时，人们开始改用现金支付。打车软件无法使用后，一些人只能搭乘顺路车。对讲机、模拟电话线路、纸质地图以及老式MP3播放器的网上销量激增。甚至在克里姆林宫内，官员们也重新用起座机电话。

本月，莫斯科市中心的移动互联网中断令许多俄罗斯人感到震惊。

Some of the impacts have been perilous. During outages, glucose-monitoring devices worn by children with diabetes, for instance, haven’t been able to transmit real-time updates that parents need to adjust the insulin levels.

一些影响甚至是危险的。例如在断网期间，糖尿病儿童佩戴的血糖监测设备无法传输实时数据，而父母需要这些数据来调整胰岛素剂量。

Amid all the disruption, signs of public anger have bubbled up, with efforts in some cities to hold protests over the internet outages and app throttling, though they have been blocked by authorities. To keep apps like Telegram working, millions of Russians have turned to virtual private networks, or VPNs, to circumvent the restrictions.

在种种混乱中，公众愤怒的迹象开始显现，一些城市出现了针对断网和应用程序限流的抗议活动，尽管这些抗议被当局阻止。为了正常使用Telegram等应用，数百万俄罗斯人转而使用VPN来绕过限制。

Titov, the editor of Ostorozhno Novosti, which is owned by Russian socialite and former presidential candidate Ksenia Sobchak, underscored that Telegram was not simply a “social network” but the foundation of what remained of the unfettered Russian internet.

Ostorozhno Novosti频道的主编季托夫强调，Telegram不仅仅是一个“社交网络”，更是俄罗斯所剩无几的自由互联网的基石。该媒体由俄罗斯名媛、前总统候选人克谢尼娅·索布恰克所有。

“Telegram for Russians, at least of my generation — those who started using it at, say, 20 years old — is their entire internet life,” Titov said. In that sense, he said, “the entire internet system that people are used to is being destroyed right now.”

“对俄罗斯人来说，至少对我这一代人——比如从20岁开始使用Telegram的那批人——它几乎就是他们全部的互联网生活，”季托夫说。从这个意义上讲，他说，“人们所熟悉的整个互联网体系，现在正在被摧毁。”

Disappearing Freedom

正在消失的自由

For decades, Russians enjoyed a largely free and decentralized internet. A vibrant digital culture took root, with Russians expressing themselves openly, organizing politically and regularly using Western tech platforms.

几十年来，俄罗斯一直享有一个相对自由、去中心化的互联网环境。一种充满活力的数字文化在这里生根发芽，人们可以自由地表达观点、组织政治活动，而且可以经常使用西方科技平台。

After mass protests against Putin swept Moscow in 2011 and 2012, the Kremlin began to see the freewheeling Russian internet as a serious threat. Frustrated by the power of U.S. tech giants, Putin set out to build a “sovereign internet”— a hived-off online world he could control.

在2011年和2012年席卷莫斯科的大规模抗议活动之后，克里姆林宫开始将这种不受管控的俄罗斯互联网视为严重威胁。面对美国科技巨头的影响力，普京感到不满，于是着手打造一个“主权互联网”——一个他可以控制的、与外界隔绝的网络空间。

Perhaps no one represented the threat for the Kremlin more than anti-corruption campaigner Alexei Navalny, who rose to prominence as a LiveJournal blogger calling out state corruption. With videos garnering millions of views, he showed how viral online content could lead to real-world protests.

对克里姆林宫而言，也许没有人比反腐活动人士阿列克谢·纳瓦利内更具威胁性。他最初因在LiveJournal上揭露国家腐败走红。凭借获得数百万点击量的视频，他展示了爆火的网络内容如何在现实世界引发抗议。

Led by Roskomnadzor, the Russian communications regulator, Russian authorities blocked his website and pressured Western tech giants to remove his protest-voting app and video ads.

在俄罗斯通信监管机构Roskomnadzor牵头下，当局封锁了他的网站，并施压西方科技巨头删除他的抗议投票应用和相关视频广告。

Then, after Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the Kremlin began curtailing Russian internet freedom with much bolder, more disruptive actions.

在2022年普京发动对乌克兰的全面入侵后，克里姆林宫开始以更为激进、更具破坏性的手段来收紧俄罗斯的互联网自由。

阿列克谢·纳瓦利内广泛的网络影响力曾对俄罗斯政府构成挑战。

Moscow swiftly banned Twitter, Instagram and Facebook outright, and eventually turned its attention to suffocating YouTube, long one of Russia’s most heavily used sites, as well as WhatsApp. VPN use soared.

莫斯科迅速屏蔽了Twitter、Instagram和Facebook，并最终将矛头指向YouTube——这个长期以来在俄罗斯使用最广泛的网站之一——以及WhatsApp，试图封杀它们。VPN的使用量随之激增。

Amid the state onslaught, Telegram remained a relatively open space.

在国家强力打压之下，Telegram一度仍是相对开放的空间。

Armed with its own network of Telegram channels, the Kremlin relied on the app to spread its messages of propaganda about the war, and soldiers used the app to stay in touch with their families and raise money for their units. At the same time, Russians could read unfiltered news and commentary by even the fiercest government critics.

利用自己的Telegram频道网络，克里姆林宫依靠这款应用传播其战争宣传信息，士兵则使用该应用与家人保持联系，并为部队筹集资金。与此同时，俄罗斯民众仍可以读到未经审查的新闻和评论，甚至包括最尖锐的批评政府的声音。

One of them was Russian mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin, who posted unvarnished and expletive-laden videos on Telegram from the front. He developed a cult following among discontented soldiers that exploded into a failed coup in 2023, underscoring to the Kremlin how Telegram posts could fuel a real threat.

其中一位批评者是俄罗斯雇佣兵头目叶夫根尼·普里戈任。他在Telegram上发布未经修饰，甚至夹杂粗口的前线视频。他在心怀不满的士兵中培养了一批狂热的追随者，这股势力在2023年演变成一场未遂政变，这也让克里姆林宫意识到，Telegram上的帖子可能催生现实中的威胁。

‘Enemy Form of Communication’

“敌对的通信形式”

More than two years later, Roskomnadzor announced that it was throttling Telegram, saying in February that the app had violated Russian law by failing to protect personal data, combat fraud and prevent its use by terrorists and criminals.

两年多之后，俄罗斯通信监管机构Roskomnadzor宣布对Telegram进行限制，并在今年2月表示，该应用程序因未能保护个人数据、打击欺诈以及防止被恐怖分子和犯罪分子利用，因而违反了俄罗斯法律。

Intermittent blockages of the service began. The New York Times tested access to Telegram in mid-March using 72 servers across Russia and found that only 39 were able to load the app’s browser version.

此后，对该服务的间歇性封锁开始出现。《纽约时报》在3月中旬使用分布在俄罗斯各地的72台服务器测试了访问Telegram的情况，发现其中只有39台能够加载该应用的网页版。

Conventional wisdom long held that because Russia’s internet began free, it would be impossible technologically and politically for the Kremlin to put the genie back in the bottle.

长期以来，一种普遍看法认为，由于俄罗斯的互联网起步时是自由的，从技术和政治层面来说，克里姆林宫都不可能再把“精灵”重新塞回瓶子里。

Alena Epifanova, a Russia analyst at the German Council on Foreign Relations, said that while Russia was not able to replicate China’s “Great Firewall” approach, which closed off the Chinese internet from the start, it was quickly moving toward an Iranian model. That approach involves “white lists” of approved sites, targeted outages and an internal intranet under the government’s thumb, she said.

德国外交关系委员会的俄罗斯问题分析师阿列娜·叶皮凡诺娃表示，尽管俄罗斯无法复制中国那种从一开始就封闭互联网的“防火长城”模式，但它正迅速转向伊朗模式。她说，这种模式包括对网站实行“白名单”、实施定点断网，以及建立一个受政府控制的内部局域网。

Many Russians, including supporters of Putin, view disabling Telegram as a bridge too far.

许多俄罗斯人，包括一些普京的支持者，都认为封禁Telegram做得太过分了。

The decision even led to a fleeting return of politics in Russia’s rubber-stamp parliament.

这一决定甚至让长期形同橡皮图章的俄罗斯议会短暂出现了政治争论。

Sergei M. Mironov, the leader of the party A Just Russia and a vocal supporter of the war, called Telegram the “only reliable means of communication” for the Russian military.

公正俄罗斯党的领导人、乌克兰战争的高调支持者谢尔盖·米罗诺夫称，Telegram是俄罗斯军队“唯一可靠的通信手段”。

别尔哥罗德州州长维亚切斯拉夫·格拉德科夫去年在莫斯科，照片来自俄罗斯官方媒体发布。他称Telegram是关键的生存基础设施。

“Those who are shedding blood have no contact with their relatives and friends,” Mironov said. “What are you doing, you idiots?”

“那些正在流血牺牲的人无法与亲友取得联系，”米罗诺夫说。“你们在干什么，你们这些白痴？”

In a vote in Russia’s lower house of parliament, 77 deputies, including those from Mironov’s party and the Communist bloc, voted to ask Russian authorities to justify their decision. The measure failed, with 102 opposing it, but revealed rare divisions.

在俄罗斯国家杜马的一次投票中，包括米罗诺夫所在政党和共产党阵营在内的77名议员投票要求政府解释这一决定。该动议以102票反对未获通过，但暴露出罕见的意见分歧。

Putin, who has said that Moscow must “strangle” foreign tech firms to defend its sovereignty, has been largely silent on the matter.

普京此前曾表示，为了维护主权，莫斯科必须“扼杀”外国科技公司，但在该问题上他基本保持沉默。

In a March 5 meeting at the Kremlin, though, he pointedly asked a military officer whether using communication systems that “are not under our control” was dangerous for personnel.

不过，在3月5日克里姆林宫的一次会议上，他意味深长地询问一名军官，使用那些“不受我们控制”的通信系统，是否会对人员构成危险。

The officer said it was and called Telegram an “enemy form of communication.” Russian journalists later found that the officer had a premium Telegram account.

这名军官回答称确实如此，并称Telegram是一种“敌对的通信形式”。不过后来俄罗斯记者发现，这名军官本人却拥有Telegram的高级账号。

Stifled Discontent

被压制的不满情绪

Telegram, which combines the functionality of Twitter and WhatsApp, was created by Russian-born tech billionaire Pavel Durov, who now lives in the United Arab Emirates. Durov has denounced Moscow’s move as an affront to free speech and “a sad spectacle of a state afraid of its own people.” Russia has placed him under investigation.

Telegram融合了类似Twitter和WhatsApp的功能，由出生于俄罗斯的科技亿万富翁帕维尔·杜罗夫创建，他现居阿联酋。杜罗夫谴责莫斯科此举是对言论自由的侵犯，是“一个害怕自己人民的国家的可悲景象”。俄罗斯方面已对他展开调查。

Durov has yet to announce any countermoves but could make technical changes to Telegram that would help Russians access the app despite the blockages.

杜罗夫尚未宣布任何应对措施，但他可能通过技术手段调整Telegram，使俄罗斯用户在封锁的情况下仍能访问该应用。

Attempts to organize protests have failed.

组织抗议的尝试均告失败。

Permit requests for demonstrations against internet restrictions have been filed in 28 towns and cities across 17 Russian regions, according to Dmitri Kisiyev, a Russian political activist, but all were rejected. At least 50 people have been detained since December 2025 for staging protests against internet restrictions, said OVD-Info, a Russian human rights group.

据俄罗斯政治活动人士德米特里·基西耶夫称，俄罗斯17个地区的28个城镇已提交了针对互联网限制的抗议活动许可申请，但全部被拒。俄罗斯人权组织OVD-Info表示，自2025年12月以来，至少有50人因参加反对互联网限制的抗议活动而被拘留。

In Krasnodar, a city in Russia’s south, a local pro-war lawmaker, Alexander Safronov, received a permit for a 200-person protest, only to have it revoked, with city officials citing security concerns.

在俄罗斯南部城市克拉斯诺达尔，一名支持战争的地方议员亚历山大·萨夫罗诺夫原本获得了举行一场200人规模抗议的许可，但随后又被撤销，当地官员称是出于安全考虑。

俄罗斯彼尔姆市，一场原计划针对Telegram限制的抗议活动许可被撤销后，警察出现在现场。

“Left-wing people, right-wing people — many disagree with what is happening with the blockages and the throttling,” he said in a telephone interview. “The state isn’t even trying to talk to citizens clearly or seriously and doesn’t explain anything to them.”

“左翼人士、右翼人士——许多人都不同意封禁和限制使用的做法，”他在电话采访中说。“政府甚至没有试图与公民进行清晰、严肃的对话，也没有向他们做任何解释。”

Even as people express their anger and hope their workarounds last, many are resigned to a future under stricter state control.

尽管人们表达了愤怒，并希望翻墙手段能够一直有效，但许多人也逐渐接受一个现实：未来将处于更严格的国家控制之下。

Titov predicted that his news outlet would not have the same success on the state-controlled app MAX, whose parent company, social media giant VK, already censors critical comments and news. But he said he saw no way to roll everything back.

季托夫预测，他的新闻频道在政府管控的应用程序MAX上不会取得同样的成功。MAX的母公司、社交媒体巨头VK已经在对批评性的评论和新闻进行审查。但他说，他看不到任何能够回到过去的办法。

“It’s very easy to see dissatisfaction on the internet across all layers of society,” Titov said. “It just doesn’t go anywhere. Even among people who are for the war, there is a lot of criticism of the state, but everyone has sort of learned that you can’t do anything about it.”

“很容易在互联网上看到社会各阶层的不满，”季托夫说。“但这种不满无处宣泄。即使在支持战争的人当中，也有很多对国家的批评，但每个人都多少已经明白，对此你无能为力。”