Katya\u2019s phone suddenly refused to provide the basics she needed to drive home to Moscow from St. Petersburg. She, her partner and countless others were unable to go online, cut off from their apps for things like maps, banking, paying road tolls and buying fuel.<\/p>\n
There was no warning, no hint how widespread the outage was, no clue how long it would last \u2014 but it wasn\u2019t a surprise, either. Russia\u2019s mobile internet networks now have frequent blackouts because of the war with Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Since last month, the authorities have shut those networks down every day in various parts of the country, in unpredictable patterns, for hours at a time. The goal is to try to thwart attacks by Ukrainian drones that analysts say have used mobile networks<\/a> for navigation.<\/p>\n It is a big disruption in a country where smartphones provide the only online access for millions of people. The government regularly touts an array of online services, like filing tax returns and applying for jobs, and President Vladimir V. Putin claimed this year<\/a> that Russia was \u201ca step ahead of many other nations.\u201d<\/p>\n Even so, \u201cthey can turn off the internet,\u201d said Katya, 32. She described how the government had encouraged reliance on apps and web services \u2014 and then exercised control over internet access \u2014 as a \u201cdigital gulag.\u201d Like others interviewed, she asked to be identified only by her first name out of fear for her safety.<\/p>\n She and her partner made it home from their recent weekend getaway, after struggling with a partially downloaded map and phoning her partner\u2019s mother to top up their debit card to pay for gas.<\/p>\n The Russian government has a record of restricting online freedoms, including trying to block the country\u2019s most popular messaging app<\/a> and throttling YouTube<\/a>. But the mobile internet shutdowns are the collateral damage of war, a response to Ukraine\u2019s spectacular drone attacks<\/a> on long-range bombers at Russian bases on June 1.<\/p>\n Cellphones use parallel mobile networks, one for calls and another for the data used by phone apps \u2014 or drones. The internet blackouts shut down the data network, but calls still go through. Wireless connections, which do not depend on mobile networks, can allow phones to stay online.<\/p>\n Day-to-day orders to shut down the mobile internet come from regional officials responding to reported drone intrusions, rather than from Moscow, according to documents viewed by The New York Times. The Russian communications ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n Mikhail Klimarev, head of the Internet Protection Society, an exiled Russian digital rights group, said, \u201cThe Kremlin has been asking regional authorities to put up a defense against the drones \u2014 there\u2019s nothing else they can do but turn the internet off.\u201d<\/p>\n The threat of drones also regularly shuts down Russian airports<\/a> for hours. Some 300 flights were canceled in Moscow in one weekend alone.<\/p>\n By late July, the cellular internet was down every day, for at least a few hours, in some part of at least 73 of Russia\u2019s 83 regions, according to a tally by Na Svyazi<\/a>, a group of volunteers living abroad that monitors internet access in Russia.<\/p>\n Yelena, who lives in Rostov-on-Don in southern Russia, said that her daughter commuted to and from school by bus, paying her way with a transport card, but that the system didn\u2019t work during an outage. A few times, Yelena said, she has had to wire the fare to the bus driver\u2019s phone, instead.<\/p>\n Russians first experienced such shutdowns in the early months of the war, but they were limited to the areas bordering Ukraine.<\/p>\n This year, the authorities switched off mobile internet in Moscow for a few days before the annual Victory Day parade<\/a> in May, a major event for Mr. Putin, who was hosting several world leaders, including China\u2019s leader, Xi Jinping. That outage exposed Muscovites\u2019 reliance on apps for contactless payments<\/a>, taxis<\/a>, car sharing, food delivery and shopping<\/a>, but discontent was fairly muted.<\/p>\n \u201cThe regions used to be wary of potential public repercussions and had not resorted to such shutdowns,\u201d Sarkis Darbinian, a Russian lawyer and internet expert who lives in exile, told The New York Times. The lack of protests in Moscow gave regional authorities the signal that \u201cyou can just turn the internet off\u201d without causing a backlash, he said.<\/p>\n After the Ukrainian attacks on June 1, the shutdowns began to afflict the vast breadth of the country.<\/p>\n Dmitri S. Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, blamed the inconveniences<\/a> around the Victory Day parade on \u201ca dangerous neighbor,\u201d an apparent reference to Ukraine. When he was pressed recently about more widespread shutdowns, he said<\/a>, \u201cEverything that\u2019s linked to ensuring public safety is justified.\u201d<\/p>\n Internet blackouts have hit e-commerce companies and consumers most directly, though the scale of the economic impact is unclear. They have also hampered businesses not usually associated with phone apps. In the northwestern city of Pskov, a municipally owned heating company complained last month that it had not been able to finish repairs on a pipeline on time because of the outages.<\/p>\n The internet shutdowns have become so frequent and widespread that they have given rise to online memes<\/a> and songs. In Rostov-on-Don, Pavel Osipyan, a media personality, released a music video<\/a> making light of the inconveniences.<\/p>\n \u201cHow can you tell you\u2019re from Rostov without saying it?\u201d he rapped. \u201cShow me one bar for the internet.\u201d<\/p>\n In Izhevsk, a city known for weapons production about 800 miles from Ukraine, mobile internet has often been turned off since June 1. Arina, 23, said residents there had been calling the emergency services, looking for an explanation, only to be told that it was a safety measure and that they should be patient.<\/p>\n The precautions do not always work. In the middle of one shutdown, Ukrainian drones hit a factory<\/a> in Izhevsk that makes surface-to-air missiles, killing three people and injuring scores more. No air raid alert was issued while mobile internet was down, leaving locals unsure what was happening.<\/p>\n Another day, Arina was at home when she said she heard an air raid siren. She had no idea what was going on: No one could post from the scene.<\/p>\n \u201cThe government keeps mum or says everything is fine, but everyone can see things are not fine,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Yekaterina Mizulina, head of the pro-Kremlin League for a Safe Internet, asked on social media<\/a> this month why \u201cthe internet is being throttled, and the drones keep coming and coming.\u201d<\/p>\n Many people affected by the blackouts speak of resignation. Neighbors and friends are annoyed but seem to be taking the disruptions as a new norm.<\/p>\n In the courthouses where Sofia, a law student from the southern city of Krasnodar, spends her afternoons, attorneys, their clients and families often chat about the outages, but their reaction tends to be that the shutdowns are just one more burden.<\/p>\n \u201cThey just laugh it off,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n And dozen of regions, from Tula<\/a> in the southwest to Omsk<\/a> in Siberia, have said recently that they will introduce public wireless internet to allow residents to stay online when mobile networks go down.<\/p>\n Shutdowns have reached the easternmost parts of Russia, which have not been hit by drones, prompting some to question the official rationale.<\/p>\n Artyom, a remote technology worker from Khabarovsk, 15 miles from the Chinese border, expressed concern that the blackouts could be a part of the Kremlin\u2019s strategy to restrict information. He called it \u201ca very convenient lie\u201d to blame the drone threat.<\/p>\n \u201cDrones don\u2019t make it to Khabarovsk,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t see any connection here.\u201d<\/p>\n Oleg Matsnev contributed reporting.<\/p>\n