President Vladimir V. Putin and his security services kept public dissent under wraps even as he invaded a neighboring country, sent hundreds of thousands of troops to their deaths and drastically raised taxes to pay for it all.
They then moved to restricting popular apps and occasionally cutting off the internet. Suddenly many Russians found their voice.
Ordinary citizens, politicians and even reality TV stars criticized the restrictions. By speaking out, they breathed life into Russia’s political system, which no longer allows for real opposition but leaves little room for dissent at the margins.
Instagram influencers, who are usually apolitical, are banging the drum for digital rights. Politicians from the “systemic opposition” — Potemkin’s factions, which the Kremlin allows to oppose the ruling United Russia party in parliament but still almost always vote with it — blamed the government for restricting Telegram, the country’s most widely used chat app.
Discontent is bubbling months ahead of Russia’s first parliamentary election since the invasion of Ukraine in 2022. And, along with discontent over a struggling economy and tax hikes, it has helped lower Mr. Putin’s approval ratings. That figure has fallen for seven straight weeks and now stands at 65.6 percent, according to VTsIOM, a state poll, about where it was just before the war.
“Internet restrictions have turned large numbers of people against the ruling class, if not against Vladimir Putin himself,” said Mikhail Komin, a political scientist at the Center for European Policy Analysis. “That’s why we’re seeing a drop in viewership and people who have never spoken out about political issues suddenly become political.”
Few aspects of Russia’s deepening repression during the war have been felt as widely as the Kremlin’s wartime efforts to bring the nation’s Internet under its full control.
Authorities, citing security reasons, have blocked access to mobile internet for days in the vast majority of Russian regions for months. They have also blocked or restricted a growing number of foreign apps — including Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp and Telegram — and pressured Russians to use domestic alternatives that are easier to monitor. Many have turned to technological solutions known as virtual private networks or VPNs.
As blackouts and blockades interfered with daily life, Russians attempted to hold protests in some cities. Authorities have blocked them, in some cases citing concerns that the demonstrations could become too large.
Instead, the Russians took to social media to complain. Furious messages flooded in comments section on the social media page of the Ministry of Digital Development. As internet outages peaked, so did Google searches for “how to leave Russia”.
Criticism came from some unexpected voices. Victoria Bonya, a beauty influencer and former reality TV star who lives in Monaco, said in an Instagram reel that Internet restrictions “make it impossible for Russia to live.”
She was careful in her direct criticism of Mr. Putin, using the Russian trope to suggest that he may simply not have been properly briefed by his associates. And she spoke from the relative safety of living abroad. But she also said, “I don’t think people should be afraid of their own president.”
The clip has more than 30 million views. Pressed by reporters for two consecutive days, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry S. Peskov finally said that Ms. Bonya felt calmed down The Kremlin worked on the issues she raised.
Gennady Zyuganov, leader of the Russian Communist Party, praised Ms. Bonya during the event speech in parliament. He said that as Russia’s economy stagnated and internet restrictions grew, snowball discontent could threaten the current government in the same way that an unpopular war, economic hardship and stifling of liberties toppled the Russian monarchy in 1917.
Ms. Bonya channeled the long-repressed frustrations of many Russians, said Abbas Gallyamov, a former Kremlin speechwriter who left Russia after the invasion of Ukraine.
“An attack on the Internet is considered an attack on privacy,” he said by phone. “People are losing the most basic services. That creates a very strong backlash.”
Even loyal members of Mr Putin’s own United Russia party have spoken out.
Vyacheslav Gladkov, governor of the Belgorod region in western Russia, the site of near-daily attacks by the Ukrainian army, he said on social media that he was “worried” that Telegram’s restrictions could put the lives of residents who relied on the app for air raid warnings at risk.
More than 100 million Russians used Telegram every month for communication, messaging and business transactions. The Kremlin is pressuring them to switch to MAX, an unencrypted government-created “super” app.
The Russians are asking the opposition parties to try to do something. The Communist Party has been “inundated with complaints from all over the country,” Alexander Yushchenko, a longtime party lawmaker, said by phone. Voter reaction to the restrictions ranged from “horror to outright radicalism,” he said.
What particularly angered people, he said, was the secrecy of the measures. The government spoke only vaguely about security threats when justifying its restrictions on the Internet.
This month, the Communists tabled a proposal to oblige the Ministry of Digital Development to officially explain the outages and blockades. The motion failed because United Russia members voted against it.
In a twist, consistent criticism of internet blocking has rewarded a puppet party created ahead of 2021 parliamentary elections to channel the youth vote after the Kremlin cracked down on a genuine opposition movement led by Alexei A. Navalny.
Previously, the New People party tried to talk about less sensitive issues, such as cutting red tape for small businesses. Now she is focusing on internet freedoms, being careful not to place the blame squarely on Mr Putin.
The New People, who won 5 percent of the vote in 2021, have now overtaken the other three Kremlin-friendly opposition parties and recently won the support of 13 percent of the electorate. opinion poll.
Although largely silenced from 2022, opposition parties retain some measure of independence and have tested the boundaries of dissent ahead of parliamentary elections due in September. (Representatives for New People declined several interview requests for The New York Times.)
It was written by the newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta, which is sometimes mildly critical of the Russian government in the editorial office that “The Internet is pretty much the only issue where either party could increase their approval ratings right now.”
But glimmers of political activity will not reverse Russians’ disenchantment with what is widely seen as a rigged system.
“I don’t participate in those theaters,” said Svetlana, a retired engineer in her late 50s, recounting her past experience in the local election organizing committee.
Svetlana, who was afraid to give her last name, was in Red Square to pay her respects to Vladimir Lenin at his mausoleum during an event organized by the Communist Party.
“With the current government, we are basically reduced to an open prison and things are getting worse,” she said.
Denis Parfjonov, a Communist Party lawmaker who attended the event, said public discontent had grown so much that “there may not be much time left” before Russians are ready to take “much more decisive action”.
So far, however, the system of power that Mr. Putin has built seems insulated from the kind of revolutionary change that Russian communists technically celebrate.
“We see that a new political process is underway, that’s for sure, but it does not pose any threat to the stability of the political regime,” political scientist Komin said.
