As Russia gears up for its upcoming presidential elections, the country is facing a series of alarming challenges, including kamikaze drone attacks on weapons plants, unrest in its oil-producing regions, and severe power outages in bone-chilling temperatures of -30°C. Amidst these tumultuous times, the nation is now grappling with what is being described as the largest Internet meltdown it has ever witnessed.

Reports have flooded in from across the vast Russian landscape, with people encountering difficulties accessing major online platforms such as Google and Yandex. The disruption also extended to websites using the .ru domain, affecting crucial sectors like banking and news organisations. While the exact cause of the outage initially remained uncertain, questions arose as to whether it was a purely domestic issue or possibly an external cyberattack.

This digital crisis coincides with President Vladimir Putin’s efforts to further isolate the Russian web from Western influences, thereby limiting the exposure of Russian citizens to external information sources. Despite the magnitude of the Internet disruption, Russia refrained from immediately attributing it to foreign interference.

The Internet turmoil persisted for at least an hour and a half, affecting all 11 time zones across Russia, from the Baltic region to the Pacific coast. In supermarkets, cash registers linked to Sberbank, the country’s largest bank and operator of the largest payments system, experienced failures, leading to lengthy queues and frustrating announcements on store screens.

Users voiced their frustration, with many lamenting, ‘The Internet is broken.’ Even the Kremlin’s official website faced temporary disruptions, along with other government sites.

Andrey Vorobyov, director of the Domain Coordination Centre, expressed their commitment to resolving the technical issue, stating, “We are working on a technical problem, I can’t talk now.”

The Ministry of Digital Development reassured the public, saying, “In the near future, access to sites in the .ru zone will be restored. A technical issue has occurred affecting the .RU zone associated with the global DNSSEC infrastructure.”

As Russia grapples with these unprecedented challenges, the nation’s upcoming presidential elections have taken on an even more uncertain and turbulent backdrop, raising questions about the impact of these events on the political landscape.