Telegram not working in Russia: what’s restricted and how to tell a block from an outage

Messages go through only now and then, photos and videos take minutes to load, and sometimes the app just hangs on connecting. If you’re searching for why Telegram is not working in Russia, the problem probably isn’t your phone: it’s the restrictions that Roskomnadzor, Russia’s communications watchdog, has been introducing in stages for more than a year now. We go through the dates and the official wording, our October 12, 2026 measurement, the signs that distinguish a restriction from an ordinary outage, and what the messenger itself offers.

Why Telegram isn’t working: what RKN restricted and when

The restrictions grew step by step, and the regulator announced almost every step itself. The source of each date and quote is given in parentheses.

• August 13, 2025. Roskomnadzor (RKN) began partially restricting calls in Telegram and WhatsApp. According to law enforcement data the regulator cited, these messengers are used for scams and extortion, and also to draw Russians into sabotage and terrorist activity. “Repeated demands to take countermeasures have been ignored by the owners of the messengers,” the statement said (Interfax). Other features were not touched at that point, according to RKN. How the same measures affected the other messenger is the subject of our piece what happened to WhatsApp in Russia.
• October 22, 2025. RKN confirmed the “partial restriction of foreign messengers,” and its deputy head Oleg Terlyakov said that after voice calls were blocked, fraudulent calls dropped by 40% within a month (Interfax).
• February 10, 2026. The regulator announced that it “will continue to introduce restrictions step by step in order to achieve compliance with Russian legislation.” Its complaints about Telegram were the same as before: “personal data is not protected,” “there are no real measures to counter fraud,” and the key demands are “placing servers on Russian territory” and “creating conditions for stopping extremism and terrorism” (Interfax, RIA Novosti). That day, users complained that media files were loading slowly.
• February 17 and 26, 2026. Media reports appeared about a full block from April 1. RKN neither confirmed nor denied them: “The agency has nothing to add to the information published earlier on this matter” (RIA Novosti).
• Mid-March 2026. “Roskomnadzor still records non-compliance with Russian legislation by the administration of the Telegram messenger,” the regulator said. According to Vedomosti, users were by then complaining of a complete lack of access.
• March 31 – April 4, 2026. Telegram warned that paying for a Premium subscription in Russia “may become technically impossible.” The service’s founder Pavel Durov wrote that the team would keep adapting to the slowdown and that 65 million Russians still use the messenger every day (Vedomosti). According to Mediascope data cited by Forbes, Telegram’s average daily reach in Russia fell from 80 million people in February to 72.2 million in March, and time spent in the app from 44 to 34 minutes a day.
• October 7, 2026. Interfax recalled RKN’s position: Telegram still fails to comply with the requirements of Russian legislation, so the restrictions will continue “in order to achieve compliance with Russian legislation and ensure the protection of citizens.” According to the agency’s law enforcement sources, in the first half of 2026 Moscow courts fined Telegram a total of more than 100 million rubles.

Our measurement: Telegram’s sites from nine Russian networks

We checked three addresses, the telegram.org home page, the web.telegram.org web version and the t.me short-link service, through Globalping, an openly accessible pool of points for running network measurements. Four measurements from 22:34 to 22:36 UTC produced 16 checks, 12 of them from Russia. Which network counts as a home network and which as a data center is decided by Globalping itself. Our server abroad also contacted each of the three addresses once, without a VPN, directly. We did not test the app, sending messages or calls.

One more vantage point in the Netherlands could not even get the address of telegram.org via DNS; that was a fault of the vantage point itself, so it is not included in the table.

Telegram slow or blocked: how to tell a restriction from an outage

• Compare with other sites. If everything else opens quickly while Telegram hangs on connecting, the problem is with the connection to Telegram specifically, not with the internet in general.
• Compare networks. If the messenger connects neither over home Wi-Fi nor over mobile internet, the picture resembles our measurement, in which Telegram’s sites did not open on any of nine Russian networks. If it fails on only one network, start with the router and the provider.
• Ask people abroad. If Telegram doesn’t work for them either, the outage is on the side of the service or its infrastructure. An example is July 13, 2026: the registry of the .me domain zone suspended the t.me domain, citing compliance with the US regulator OFAC, and Telegram’s short links stopped opening worldwide. About a day later the domain was working again. According to 3DNews, Russian providers and RKN had nothing to do with it, and telegram.org kept working as usual.
• Look at what exactly is slow. When texts still get through but photos, videos and voice messages take a long time to load, this matches the complaints Interfax reported on February 10, 2026, the day the new restrictions were announced.

What Telegram itself offers

We do not cover ways of getting around the restrictions here, only what Telegram describes in its own help pages and terms.

• Official apps. Telegram’s FAQ names the web version and a desktop app for Windows, macOS and Linux. Bear in mind that web.telegram.org did not open from Russia in our measurement either. Since April 2026, Telegram has been marking accounts that log in through third-party clients and “mirrors,” and warning the people they chat with about risks to their conversations (CNews), so installing unofficial apps is not a good idea.
• Account self-destruct period. If you don’t come online for at least 18 months, the default setting, your account will be deleted. The period can be changed in Settings; check it while Telegram still opens for you at least somehow.
• Two-step verification. With it, logging in requires both an SMS code and a password. Telegram sometimes sends the login code into the app itself rather than by SMS, but the service warns that this is no substitute for an up-to-date phone number. It’s best to keep the number your account is tied to active.
• Premium subscription. On March 31, 2026, Telegram warned that paying for it from Russia may become technically impossible (Vedomosti).

Telegram’s Terms of Service never mention “VPN,” and it isn’t among the things users agree not to do. But the Terms of Service for Telegram Premium, in Section 4.1, say that failure to comply with the general terms may result in a temporary or permanent ban from Telegram or some of its services.

The Liberum VPS bot lives in Telegram too: what that means for you

To be honest about the inconvenience: you can get trial access only through our bot, and it runs inside Telegram. If the messenger connects for you at least somehow, the bot can be reached, but links to it lead to t.me, and that address did not open from Russia in our measurement; in that case, find the bot in Telegram search by its name, @Liberum_VPSBot. After that comes a week without payment and without linking a card, at a location in the Netherlands, Germany or Georgia. If Telegram doesn’t open at all, you won’t be able to reach the bot right now; try later, or on another network where the messenger connects at least sometimes. We did not test Telegram over a Liberum VPN connection, so we can’t vouch for the result, although it may work in your case. The address at each location is shared: it is used by all customers connected to that country.

Steps, if Telegram opens at least somehow: go to the Liberum VPS bot, take the free week, choose a foreign country, paste the bot’s subscription link into a client app (Happ, say), connect, and open Telegram again. Prices and terms can be read without the messenger too, on the page Liberum VPN for Russia.

What we don’t promise

• That Telegram will work through our location. We have not run the messenger with a Liberum VPN connection, and Telegram’s sites returned code 200 only to Globalping vantage points abroad and to our server abroad without a VPN.
• That you’ll be able to reach the bot when Telegram doesn’t open at all. We have no other way into the trial.
• That calls, voice messages and video will work as before. We checked only web pages.
• That your account won’t be banned. Telegram’s terms don’t mention VPNs, but for violating the general terms the service may ban an account temporarily or permanently (Section 4.1 of the Terms of Service for Telegram Premium).
• That the restrictions will end any time soon. In October 2026, RKN was still talking about continuing the restrictions, and in the first half of the year courts fined Telegram more than 100 million rubles. We won’t guess at timelines.

Key takeaways

• Telegram calls have been partially restricted since August 13, 2025, and since February 10, 2026 RKN has been restricting the whole messenger.
• The regulator demands that servers be placed in Russia, personal data be protected and fraud and terrorism be fought; no full block has been officially announced.
• On October 12, 2026, telegram.org, web.telegram.org and t.me did not open in any of the 12 checks from Russia, while from abroad they opened.
• If Telegram doesn’t work on any network but works abroad, it looks like a restriction; if it doesn’t work abroad either, it looks like an outage of the service.
• Use only official apps, and check your account’s self-destruct period and two-step verification.
• The Liberum VPS bot runs in Telegram: if the messenger opens at least somehow, a foreign location can be tested free for 7 days, though results aren’t guaranteed.