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Russia ranked first worldwide in 2025 by total duration of internet shutdowns, according to Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation (CCD).
Monitoring services show that cumulative internet outages in Russia amounted to 37,166 hours over the year, with economic losses estimated at $11.9 billion.
“For comparison, Venezuela, which ranked second, experienced 5,952 hours of internet shutdowns over the year — almost six times less than Russia. This can hardly be called anything other than a ‘major achievement’ for a state that has spent years promoting the idea of ‘digital sovereignty,’” the CCD said.
The Center noted that the scale of the shutdowns points to their systemic nature. They affected dozens of regions and can no longer be explained by standard official justifications such as ‘protection from fraud’ or ‘security concerns.’
“Internet shutdowns in Russia have definitively become an instrument of state policy. During outages, only resources from a Kremlin-approved ‘whitelist’ remain accessible. This reflects a deliberate strategy by the Russian authorities aimed at achieving full digital isolation of the population,” the CCD concluded.
