Karina Bovsunovskaya09:37, 07.08.25

Russians complain about constant mobile phone outages.

In the western part of Russia, in the Rostov region, local residents cannot connect to the Internet, open a card, transfer salaries or use other services. The Russian authorities assure that there are serious reasons for this, writes The Telegraph .

It is known that on August 5, a Ukrainian drone attacked one of the main railway hubs of Rostov for the second time in one night, destroying equipment used to transport oil at a logistics center for the military.

It is noted that without mobile Internet networks, such drones cannot find the data needed to navigate to their targets, which is why Russia is now simply turning off the Internet.

“There are no warnings. This is becoming the new norm,” local resident Tatyana (name changed), 30, told The Telegraph.

The publication recalled that Russian authorities began to shut down mobile Internet networks more frequently back in May and are doing so not only in regions bordering Ukraine, but also more than 6 thousand kilometers from the front line.

According to the independent digital monitoring project Na Svyazi, in July alone, 2,099 cases of Internet shutdowns were recorded in the Russian Federation, which is three times more than in June, and 30 times more than in May.

Although the official reason for such innovations is to counteract attacks by Ukrainian drones, experts believe that this is also being done to limit people’s freedom on the Internet and strengthen control over the population.

In turn, experts say that disconnecting mobile Internet networks can knock a drone off course, but it can still fly using other means of communication, and sometimes autonomously.

Internet shutdowns are occurring in a chaotic manner that is difficult to predict, indicating a lack of logic in decision-making, analysts said.

(C)UNIAN 2025