# Censorship detected in RU

**Country:** 🇷🇺 Russia (RU)
**Date:** 2026-08-20
**Type:** Censorship
**Severity:** CRITICAL
**Status:** suspected

## Summary

None

## Metrics

- Confidence: 89%
- Measurements: 17
- Anomaly Rate: 98.6%

## Evidence

- **OONI** (measurement): OONI signal: 421/512 measurements anomalous (82.2%)
  - Observed: 2026-08-20
  - Confidence: 83%
  - [OONI Explorer (independently verifiable)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=RU&test_name=signal&since=2026-08-20&until=2026-08-21&only=anomalies)
- **OONI** (measurement): OONI whatsapp: 298/373 measurements anomalous (79.9%)
  - Observed: 2026-08-20
  - Confidence: 82%
  - [OONI Explorer (independently verifiable)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=RU&test_name=whatsapp&since=2026-08-20&until=2026-08-21&only=anomalies)
- **OONI** (measurement): OONI telegram: 304/354 measurements anomalous (85.9%)
  - Observed: 2026-08-20
  - Confidence: 84%
  - [OONI Explorer (independently verifiable)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=RU&test_name=telegram&since=2026-08-20&until=2026-08-21&only=anomalies)
- **OONI** (measurement): OONI tor: 351/359 measurements anomalous (97.8%)
  - Observed: 2026-08-20
  - Confidence: 89%
  - [OONI Explorer (independently verifiable)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=RU&test_name=tor&since=2026-08-20&until=2026-08-21&only=anomalies)
- **OONI** (measurement): OONI signal: 478/568 measurements anomalous (84.2%)
  - Observed: 2026-08-20
  - Confidence: 84%
  - [OONI Explorer (independently verifiable)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=RU&test_name=signal&since=2026-08-20&until=2026-08-21&only=anomalies)
- **OONI** (measurement): OONI whatsapp: 295/374 measurements anomalous (78.9%)
  - Observed: 2026-08-20
  - Confidence: 82%
  - [OONI Explorer (independently verifiable)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=RU&test_name=whatsapp&since=2026-08-20&until=2026-08-21&only=anomalies)
- **OONI** (measurement): OONI telegram: 312/355 measurements anomalous (87.9%)
  - Observed: 2026-08-20
  - Confidence: 85%
  - [OONI Explorer (independently verifiable)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=RU&test_name=telegram&since=2026-08-20&until=2026-08-21&only=anomalies)
- **OONI** (measurement): OONI tor: 373/380 measurements anomalous (98.2%)
  - Observed: 2026-08-20
  - Confidence: 89%
  - [OONI Explorer (independently verifiable)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=RU&test_name=tor&since=2026-08-20&until=2026-08-21&only=anomalies)
- **OONI** (measurement): OONI signal: 455/516 measurements anomalous (88.2%)
  - Observed: 2026-08-20
  - Confidence: 85%
  - [OONI Explorer (independently verifiable)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=RU&test_name=signal&since=2026-08-20&until=2026-08-21&only=anomalies)
- **OONI** (measurement): OONI whatsapp: 323/385 measurements anomalous (83.9%)
  - Observed: 2026-08-20
  - Confidence: 84%
  - [OONI Explorer (independently verifiable)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=RU&test_name=whatsapp&since=2026-08-20&until=2026-08-21&only=anomalies)
- **OONI** (measurement): OONI telegram: 332/366 measurements anomalous (90.7%)
  - Observed: 2026-08-20
  - Confidence: 86%
  - [OONI Explorer (independently verifiable)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=RU&test_name=telegram&since=2026-08-20&until=2026-08-21&only=anomalies)
- **OONI** (measurement): OONI facebook_messenger: 314/612 measurements anomalous (51.3%)
  - Observed: 2026-08-20
  - Confidence: 71%
  - [OONI Explorer (independently verifiable)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=RU&test_name=facebook_messenger&since=2026-08-20&until=2026-08-21&only=anomalies)
- **OONI** (measurement): OONI tor: 380/388 measurements anomalous (97.9%)
  - Observed: 2026-08-20
  - Confidence: 89%
  - [OONI Explorer (independently verifiable)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=RU&test_name=tor&since=2026-08-20&until=2026-08-21&only=anomalies)
- **OONI** (measurement): OONI signal: 424/477 measurements anomalous (88.9%)
  - Observed: 2026-08-20
  - Confidence: 86%
  - [OONI Explorer (independently verifiable)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=RU&test_name=signal&since=2026-08-20&until=2026-08-21&only=anomalies)
- **OONI** (measurement): OONI whatsapp: 306/368 measurements anomalous (83.2%)
  - Observed: 2026-08-20
  - Confidence: 83%
  - [OONI Explorer (independently verifiable)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=RU&test_name=whatsapp&since=2026-08-20&until=2026-08-21&only=anomalies)
- **OONI** (measurement): OONI telegram: 314/360 measurements anomalous (87.2%)
  - Observed: 2026-08-20
  - Confidence: 85%
  - [OONI Explorer (independently verifiable)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=RU&test_name=telegram&since=2026-08-20&until=2026-08-21&only=anomalies)
- **OONI** (measurement): OONI tor: 342/347 measurements anomalous (98.6%)
  - Observed: 2026-08-20
  - Confidence: 89%
  - [OONI Explorer (independently verifiable)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=RU&test_name=tor&since=2026-08-20&until=2026-08-21&only=anomalies)
- **CENSOREDPLANET** (http-probe): HTTP blocking (timeout): 121/171 probes blocked (70.8%) for bbc.com
  - Observed: 2026-08-20
  - Confidence: 86%
  - [CensoredPlanet raw-data portal (no per-measurement permalink)](https://data.censoredplanet.org)
- **CENSOREDPLANET** (http-probe): HTTP blocking (timeout): 127/171 probes blocked (74.3%) for facebook.com
  - Observed: 2026-08-20
  - Confidence: 87%
  - [CensoredPlanet raw-data portal (no per-measurement permalink)](https://data.censoredplanet.org)
- **CENSOREDPLANET** (http-probe): HTTP blocking (timeout): 127/170 probes blocked (74.7%) for instagram.com
  - Observed: 2026-08-20
  - Confidence: 87%
  - [CensoredPlanet raw-data portal (no per-measurement permalink)](https://data.censoredplanet.org)
- **CENSOREDPLANET** (http-probe): HTTP blocking (timeout): 126/169 probes blocked (74.6%) for medium.com
  - Observed: 2026-08-20
  - Confidence: 87%
  - [CensoredPlanet raw-data portal (no per-measurement permalink)](https://data.censoredplanet.org)
- **CENSOREDPLANET** (http-probe): HTTP blocking (timeout): 128/169 probes blocked (75.7%) for nytimes.com
  - Observed: 2026-08-20
  - Confidence: 88%
  - [CensoredPlanet raw-data portal (no per-measurement permalink)](https://data.censoredplanet.org)

## What we cannot say

- **Who caused it** — measurement data alone does not attribute the interference to any government, ISP, or other actor.
- **Intent** — anomalous or unreachable measurements indicate interference, not a stated motive or a deliberate-vs-incidental determination.
- **The mechanism** — we cannot state whether this was DNS tampering, TLS/SNI reset, HTTP blockpage, throttling, or an infrastructure outage.
- **Sub-national scope** — measurement is aggregated at the country level; we cannot localize to a province, city, or network segment.

## Data Sources

ooni, censoredplanet

## Citation

Voidly Research. (2026). Censorship detected in RU [RU-2026-3039]. Retrieved from https://voidly.ai/incident/RU-2026-3039

---
*Report generated by Voidly Research on 2026-10-05*
*Data licensed under CC BY 4.0*
*Incident ID: RU-2026-3039*
*Permalink: https://voidly.ai/incident/RU-2026-3039*