# Censorship detected in RU

**Country:** 🇷🇺 Russia (RU)
**Date:** 2026-08-21
**Type:** Censorship
**Severity:** CRITICAL
**Status:** suspected

## Summary

None

## Metrics

- Confidence: 89%
- Measurements (stored incident count; not the qualifying evidence count): 19
- Anomaly Rate: 98.3%

## Evidence

- **OONI** (measurement): OONI signal: 433/531 measurements anomalous (81.5%)
  - Observed: 2026-08-21
  - Confidence: 83%
  - [OONI Explorer filtered results (not one measurement)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=RU&test_name=signal&since=2026-08-21&until=2026-08-22&only=anomalies)
- **OONI** (measurement): OONI whatsapp: 308/378 measurements anomalous (81.5%)
  - Observed: 2026-08-21
  - Confidence: 83%
  - [OONI Explorer filtered results (not one measurement)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=RU&test_name=whatsapp&since=2026-08-21&until=2026-08-22&only=anomalies)
- **OONI** (measurement): OONI telegram: 330/375 measurements anomalous (88.0%)
  - Observed: 2026-08-21
  - Confidence: 85%
  - [OONI Explorer filtered results (not one measurement)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=RU&test_name=telegram&since=2026-08-21&until=2026-08-22&only=anomalies)
- **OONI** (measurement): OONI tor: 371/385 measurements anomalous (96.4%)
  - Observed: 2026-08-21
  - Confidence: 89%
  - [OONI Explorer filtered results (not one measurement)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=RU&test_name=tor&since=2026-08-21&until=2026-08-22&only=anomalies)
- **OONI** (measurement): OONI signal: 483/597 measurements anomalous (80.9%)
  - Observed: 2026-08-21
  - Confidence: 82%
  - [OONI Explorer filtered results (not one measurement)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=RU&test_name=signal&since=2026-08-21&until=2026-08-22&only=anomalies)
- **OONI** (measurement): OONI whatsapp: 296/387 measurements anomalous (76.5%)
  - Observed: 2026-08-21
  - Confidence: 81%
  - [OONI Explorer filtered results (not one measurement)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=RU&test_name=whatsapp&since=2026-08-21&until=2026-08-22&only=anomalies)
- **OONI** (measurement): OONI telegram: 319/374 measurements anomalous (85.3%)
  - Observed: 2026-08-21
  - Confidence: 84%
  - [OONI Explorer filtered results (not one measurement)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=RU&test_name=telegram&since=2026-08-21&until=2026-08-22&only=anomalies)
- **OONI** (measurement): OONI facebook_messenger: 345/680 measurements anomalous (50.7%)
  - Observed: 2026-08-21
  - Confidence: 70%
  - [OONI Explorer filtered results (not one measurement)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=RU&test_name=facebook_messenger&since=2026-08-21&until=2026-08-22&only=anomalies)
- **OONI** (measurement): OONI tor: 356/367 measurements anomalous (97.0%)
  - Observed: 2026-08-21
  - Confidence: 89%
  - [OONI Explorer filtered results (not one measurement)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=RU&test_name=tor&since=2026-08-21&until=2026-08-22&only=anomalies)
- **OONI** (measurement): OONI signal: 424/519 measurements anomalous (81.7%)
  - Observed: 2026-08-21
  - Confidence: 83%
  - [OONI Explorer filtered results (not one measurement)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=RU&test_name=signal&since=2026-08-21&until=2026-08-22&only=anomalies)
- **OONI** (measurement): OONI whatsapp: 299/385 measurements anomalous (77.7%)
  - Observed: 2026-08-21
  - Confidence: 81%
  - [OONI Explorer filtered results (not one measurement)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=RU&test_name=whatsapp&since=2026-08-21&until=2026-08-22&only=anomalies)
- **OONI** (measurement): OONI telegram: 324/371 measurements anomalous (87.3%)
  - Observed: 2026-08-21
  - Confidence: 85%
  - [OONI Explorer filtered results (not one measurement)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=RU&test_name=telegram&since=2026-08-21&until=2026-08-22&only=anomalies)
- **OONI** (measurement): OONI facebook_messenger: 315/603 measurements anomalous (52.2%)
  - Observed: 2026-08-21
  - Confidence: 71%
  - [OONI Explorer filtered results (not one measurement)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=RU&test_name=facebook_messenger&since=2026-08-21&until=2026-08-22&only=anomalies)
- **OONI** (measurement): OONI tor: 358/376 measurements anomalous (95.2%)
  - Observed: 2026-08-21
  - Confidence: 88%
  - [OONI Explorer filtered results (not one measurement)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=RU&test_name=tor&since=2026-08-21&until=2026-08-22&only=anomalies)
- **OONI** (measurement): OONI signal: 401/466 measurements anomalous (86.1%)
  - Observed: 2026-08-21
  - Confidence: 84%
  - [OONI Explorer filtered results (not one measurement)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=RU&test_name=signal&since=2026-08-21&until=2026-08-22&only=anomalies)
- **OONI** (measurement): OONI whatsapp: 291/366 measurements anomalous (79.5%)
  - Observed: 2026-08-21
  - Confidence: 82%
  - [OONI Explorer filtered results (not one measurement)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=RU&test_name=whatsapp&since=2026-08-21&until=2026-08-22&only=anomalies)
- **OONI** (measurement): OONI telegram: 296/352 measurements anomalous (84.1%)
  - Observed: 2026-08-21
  - Confidence: 84%
  - [OONI Explorer filtered results (not one measurement)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=RU&test_name=telegram&since=2026-08-21&until=2026-08-22&only=anomalies)
- **OONI** (measurement): OONI facebook_messenger: 279/536 measurements anomalous (52.1%)
  - Observed: 2026-08-21
  - Confidence: 71%
  - [OONI Explorer filtered results (not one measurement)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=RU&test_name=facebook_messenger&since=2026-08-21&until=2026-08-22&only=anomalies)
- **OONI** (measurement): OONI tor: 354/360 measurements anomalous (98.3%)
  - Observed: 2026-08-21
  - Confidence: 89%
  - [OONI Explorer filtered results (not one measurement)](https://explorer.ooni.org/search?probe_cc=RU&test_name=tor&since=2026-08-21&until=2026-08-22&only=anomalies)

## 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.
- **Which networks** — no specific ASN/ISP is identified for this incident.
- **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.
- **Independent corroboration** — fewer than two source labels appear in qualifying linked evidence; stored incident source labels may include quarantined OONI observations.

## Data Sources

ooni

These source labels come from qualifying linked evidence. Historical incident source labels and quarantined observations are excluded; multiple labels alone do not establish independent corroboration.

## Citation

Voidly Research. (2026). Censorship detected in RU [RU-2026-3042]. Retrieved from https://voidly.ai/incident/RU-2026-3042

---
*Report generated by Voidly Research on 2026-10-25*
*Data licensed under CC BY 4.0*
*Incident ID: RU-2026-3042*
*Permalink: https://voidly.ai/incident/RU-2026-3042*