FaceTime and Snapchat not working in Russia: what is blocked and since when

A FaceTime call that won’t connect on the first try or drops in the middle of a conversation: users in Russia were complaining about this en masse back in autumn 2025, although nothing had been announced officially at the time. In December, Roskomnadzor, Russia’s communications regulator, confirmed the restrictions and, along the way, disclosed the blocking of one more service that had begun in October. Below we explain why FaceTime and Snapchat are not working in Russia: the regulator’s dates and wording, what exactly stopped responding (calls, the app or the website), what Apple’s and Snap’s rules say, how the Snapchat website responded on October 12, 2026, and what else can be done.

Why FaceTime and Snapchat aren’t working: a timeline

• September to October 2025. According to Vedomosti, users had been noticing FaceTime failures since early September. On October 21, Kod Durova reported mass complaints about voice calls: the connection often fails to go through on the first attempt, the voice arrives with a noticeable delay, and a conversation may suddenly drop, both over Wi-Fi and on mobile networks. At the time, neither Roskomnadzor nor Apple offered any explanation.
• October 10, 2025. On this day, as the regulator later reported, “in accordance with the rules for centralized management of the public communications network, Roskomnadzor took measures to block” Snapchat. This became public only on December 4 (Interfax, RIA Novosti).
• December 4, 2025, morning. RKN told Vedomosti that it had introduced “restrictive measures against the Facetime service”; the regulator did not specify the date from which they apply. Nor did it say whether this was a full or a partial block (3DNews).
• December 4, 2025, evening. About Snapchat, the regulator stated: “According to law enforcement agencies, Snapchat is used to organize and carry out terrorist acts in the country, recruit their perpetrators, and commit fraud and other crimes against our citizens” (Interfax). FaceTime, according to Rossiyskaya Gazeta, was restricted on the same grounds.

Apple and Snap did not comment on the decision (Al Jazeera, December 5, 2025). Lawmaker Anton Nemkin, quoted by Rossiyskaya Gazeta, said that Snapchat “deliberately did not cooperate with Russian authorities.” By October 12, 2026, we had not seen reports that the restrictions on either service had been lifted.

FaceTime blocked: what exactly stops working

FaceTime is Apple’s service for video and audio calls between its devices: iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Watch (3DNews); there are no separate apps for other platforms, and from Android or Windows you can only join a call through an invitation link in a web browser (Apple Support). The app is part of iOS itself: Apple’s iOS 27 license agreement classes FaceTime among its “System Services.” So the restrictions affect not the app itself but the calls: according to users’ descriptions, a call doesn’t go through, the voice lags or the connection breaks. In its FaceTime troubleshooting article, Apple itself warns: “FaceTime and FaceTime audio calling might not be available for all countries, regions, or carriers.”

iPhone owners in Russia don’t have many familiar substitutes: Roskomnadzor partially restricted calls via WhatsApp and Telegram back on August 13, 2025 (Vedomosti), and by February 2026 the restrictions had spread to the messengers as a whole. We looked at how this plays out for WhatsApp in our article what was restricted in WhatsApp and when.

Snapchat blocked in Russia: what is known

The regulator speaks of Snapchat specifically as a block of the service, not a restriction of individual features. Which parts stop responding as a result, whether the app, sending snaps, chats or the website, was not specified in the statements. Our measurement showed that the snapchat.com website opens on some Russian networks and not on others; we did not test the app, which has its own connections to Snap’s servers. There is a separate point about your account: under Snap’s terms, the company may terminate an account “due to prolonged inactivity,” and the terms don’t say how many days that means.

The Snapchat site from Russia and from abroad: the October 12, 2026 measurement

We tested the www.snapchat.com home page with Globalping, a public network-measurement service with probes in many countries: three series of measurements between 22:34 and 22:39 UTC. That made 12 checks, 10 of which were Russian. Which networks count as home networks and which as data centers is Globalping’s own call. Our server abroad made one further request for the page, with no VPN in between. FaceTime has no public web page that could tell you anything about calls: the facetime.apple.com address, requested by the same server without an invitation link, merely redirects to Apple’s promotional FaceTime page on apple.com. So we did not run a web measurement for FaceTime and made no calls; we did not log into Snapchat either.

What Apple’s and Snap’s rules say

Neither the iOS 27 license agreement nor Snap’s terms contain the words “VPN” or “proxy.” Apple’s key clause is 5(k): “Certain Apple Software, Services and Third Party Materials may not be available in all languages or in all countries or regions”; whoever chooses to use them does so, in the agreement’s words, “at your own initiative” and must answer for following local law, and Apple may “change, suspend, remove, or disable access” to its services, and do so “at any time without notice.”

Users outside the United States are served by Snap Group Limited, and two clauses in its terms (the version that took effect on September 21, 2026) matter here. Section 8 prohibits trying to get around the “content-filtering techniques” Snap employs, meaning its own filters. Section 16 says: “We may restrict, terminate, or temporarily suspend your access to the Services if you fail to comply with these Terms, our Community Guidelines or the law, for reasons outside of our control, or for any other reason.” The same section says that an account may be terminated due to prolonged inactivity. We have no information on whether Apple and Snap enforce these clauses against users in Russia.

FaceTime and Snapchat not opening: what you can do

• Tell a restriction from a fault. According to Apple’s help article, FaceTime needs a cellular or Wi-Fi connection. If your internet is fine but FaceTime calls keep failing, the picture matches the one described above, and repairing your iPhone is most likely pointless.
• Try another network. In the measurement, the Snapchat website opened on some Russian networks and not on others, so it makes sense to compare mobile internet with your home Wi-Fi.
• Keep your Snapchat account in mind. Since Snap’s terms allow an account to be closed for inactivity, a long absence could cost you your profile; the terms give no specific period.
• Check an address abroad. A foreign IP is the tool for services that block Russian addresses. Globalping vantage points abroad received the Snapchat home page without a single failure. A free way to do this is described in the next section.

A free week: FaceTime and Snapchat with an address in the Netherlands, Germany or Georgia

Liberum VPN can be tried free for 7 days, and no card details are required for that. For FaceTime and Snapchat, choose a foreign country: the Netherlands, Germany or Georgia. We have not tried FaceTime calls or Snapchat with Liberum VPN switched on, and therefore we offer no guarantee: it might work in your case. To try it, message the Liberum VPS bot in Telegram, set up the trial week there, specify a foreign country, copy the subscription link the bot issues and paste it into Happ or another connection app, switch the connection on, and then make your FaceTime call or open Snapchat. The address at a location doesn’t belong to any one person: many customers use it at once. More about the service and its prices is on the page Liberum VPN: VPN access for people in Russia.

What we don’t promise

• That FaceTime calls will go through our location. We did not test them, either from Russia or through Liberum VPN.
• That the Snapchat app will work. We checked only the website’s home page: code 200 came back to Globalping vantage points abroad and to our server abroad without a VPN.
• That your account will remain untouched. Section 16 of Snap’s terms allows it to restrict or terminate access “for any other reason,” and under section 5(k) of the iOS license agreement Apple may disable access to its services without notice.
• That the restrictions will end soon. Neither RKN nor Apple nor Snap has announced anything of the kind, and we won’t speculate about dates.

Key takeaways

• According to Roskomnadzor, Snapchat was blocked on October 10, 2025; this was announced publicly on December 4.
• On that same day, December 4, 2025, RKN reported restrictive measures against FaceTime without naming either their start date or their scope; complaints about calls had been coming in since the autumn.
• In both cases the grounds are law enforcement information about the services being used for terrorist attacks, recruitment and fraud.
• With FaceTime it is the calls themselves that suffer, while the app remains part of iOS; there is no public page for such a test.
• On October 12, 2026, the Snapchat website opened in 5 of the 10 Russian checks and in every foreign one.
• Neither Apple’s nor Snap’s rules mention VPNs, yet both companies reserve the right to restrict access, and Snap also to close accounts.
• The Liberum VPN trial gives you 7 days free, but results with a foreign location are not guaranteed.