Status: Active Restriction Ongoing
- Start Date: June 9, 2025
- Target: Websites using Cloudflare for protection
- Affected Regions: Russian Federation (nationwide)
- Primary Actors: Roskomnadzor, Russian ISPs
- Confirmed Techniques: Bandwidth throttling, packet injection, request-size caps, TLS feature blocking
- Collateral Impact: Small business web access, encrypted communications, global internet resiliency
What’s Really Happening
In what is now being seen as a methodical digital chokehold, the Russian government has begun throttling internet traffic flowing through Cloudflare — a U.S.-based web infrastructure giant that underpins a massive slice of the global internet. Beginning June 9, Russian ISPs started capping data requests to a minuscule 16 kilobytes, effectively suffocating most websites relying on Cloudflare’s backbone.
Cloudflare confirmed the move, stating:
“We are unable, at this time, to restore reliable, high-performance access for Russian users in a lawful manner.”
Behind the technical language lies a deeper strategy: total information control.
This Isn’t Just a Block — It’s Strategic Digital Suffocation
Rather than banning access outright, Russia is strangling functionality.
Sites load — barely. Content breaks. Pages hang. The experience becomes frustrating, slow, and nearly impossible to navigate. In effect, digital access dies silently, without the drama of a hard block.
Russian authorities have not officially acknowledged the clampdown, but the techniques match a broader pattern of domestic network sovereignty and the progressive de-Americanization of Russia’s internet stack.
Censorship by Design
Russian regulators like Roskomnadzor have been targeting Cloudflare for months. In late 2024, they blocked thousands of websites using Encrypted Client Hello (ECH) — a privacy protocol designed to hide which domains a user is trying to reach. Officials claimed ECH was a loophole in censorship enforcement.
Now, the targeting is broader.
Internet providers like Rostelecom, Megafon, MTS, Vimpelcom, and MGTS are executing multiple tactics in parallel:
- Packet injection to disrupt TLS handshakes
- Timeout exploitation via selective blackholing
- Throttling requests to barely load anything beyond a favicon
- Selective DNS poisoning for Cloudflare-linked domains
No Quick Fixes — And That’s the Point
Cloudflare says it cannot legally circumvent the throttling. And unlike VPN blocks or full shutdowns, this form of degradation offers plausible deniability while still discouraging users.
“We cannot restore connectivity from our side. Local users must contact Russian authorities,” the company said bluntly. But users know how that ends.
Impact on Russian Businesses
The real cost is now hitting:
- Online retailers, many of whom use Cloudflare for security and speed
- Startups, unable to afford private domestic CDN alternatives
- Independent journalists, suddenly unreachable inside Russia
- Encrypted services, unintentionally cut off as collateral
While Cloudflare never fully exited Russia after the Ukraine invasion, it did suspend accounts tied to sanctioned entities. That partial stance — “keep the pipes open for the people, but not the state” — has now backfired under Moscow’s isolation push.
Russia’s Endgame: Sovereign Isolation
This is part of a larger campaign to swap out foreign infrastructure with domestic clones. Think:
- Yandex replacing Google
- VK replacing Facebook
- RuTube replacing YouTube
- Now… Cloudflare’s elimination from Russia’s digital bloodstream
But here’s the problem: no domestic platform matches Cloudflare’s global protection grid — especially during the ongoing flood of DDoS attacks.
This creates a security vacuum, one that authoritarian control can’t patch.
Signal Drop Confirmed
- Traffic routed through Cloudflare has plummeted ~30% in Russia since June 9
- Thousands of sites are now sluggish or broken
- Censorship is no longer visible — it’s tactical degradation
TRJ Take
This is not about bandwidth.
It’s about psychological censorship through digital frustration.
When a page doesn’t load fast enough, the user gives up.
That’s the new firewall.
And make no mistake — this won’t stop with Cloudflare.
The playbook has been opened. The faucet has been tested.
And now the question becomes:
Whose internet are you really connected to — and how long until it’s rationed?
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Russia will eventually be like N. Korea if they keep this up is my take. My understanding is that North Korean citizens generally do not have access to the global internet. They are allowed access to a heavily censored, government-controlled intranet.
Thanks for the intel, John.
That’s a fair observation, Chris — and you’re right about North Korea’s system. It’s a locked-down intranet with almost no outside connection, fully controlled by the government.
Russia’s moves definitely raise that comparison, especially as they keep tightening control over digital infrastructure and external access points. The more these “chokepoints” pile up, the more their system edges toward isolation — whether intentional or not.
Appreciate you weighing in, and glad you found the intel useful. These shifts tend to start quietly… then suddenly everyone’s trapped inside the walls.