Kenneth Glad
Access problems are now hitting services used for games, messaging and browsing. For some users, the first sign is simple: the page will not load, or the connection suddenly drops.
Russia’s internet controls are increasingly reaching online gaming, with monitoring data showing disruptions to major foreign platforms including Steam, Xbox, PlayStation, Epic Games and Origin.
Verstka reports that several international gaming sites and digital storefronts have become less reachable inside Russia.
The affected services also included Pogo, Electronic Arts’ browser gaming portal, while abnormal connection patterns were recorded around online titles such as Rift, Guild Wars and RuneScape.
Players face silent disruptions
For players, the interference may not look like a public ban. Stores can stall, account pages may fail, and multiplayer sessions can break without warning.
According to United24 Media, Steam, Xbox, Epic Games and Origin all saw reduced availability in Russia.
Rift showed the sharpest reported anomaly, while Guild Wars also suffered a clear drop in connection stability.
RKS Global analysts, speaking to Verstka, linked the pattern to deliberate blocking rather than routine technical failure.
They suggested some services may have been targeted because of rules involving gambling or betting advertising.
Public block registries did not show a matching spike, which led experts to point to Russia’s Technical Measures for Countering Threats, known as TSPU.
These devices can filter or slow traffic without making every action visible through official lists.
The New York Times wrote that Russia has expanded censorship technology, strengthened throttling methods and introduced approved-access lists that determine which services remain available during shutdowns.
Those approved-access lists are compiled by the digital transformation ministry and mobile operators, but the criteria remain unclear.
The New York Times found that many major foreign services were absent from them.
Some users seek workarounds
Russian internet providers must install hardware controlled by Roskomnadzor, Russia’s federal communications and internet regulator, writes the American newspaper.
The system uses deep packet inspection to examine traffic and terminate prohibited connections. OONI, the Open Observatory of Network Interference, monitors censorship, throttling and network disruptions worldwide, making its findings useful to researchers tracking how governments interfere with online access.
“This shows that they are still stepping up their game quite a bit and, I would say, are on the leading edge of even the current standards being developed,” Arturo Filastò, founder of OONI, told The New York Times.
Some Russian users continue to seek ways around filtering. VPNs remain common, even as Roskomnadzor blocks services, removes guidance pages and pressures app stores.
The New York Times reported that Russia allocated funding for AI-based tools designed to detect VPN traffic. It also reported a sharp rise on Yandex in searches for VLESS, a protocol used to evade VPN blocks, along with growing interest in mesh-network tools.
“Durov could release a mesh network protocol, and with 100 million users, it could be quite effective,” Sarkis Darbinyan of RKS Global told The New York Times.
Still, experts warn that repeated disruption may push many people toward whatever keeps working, even when safer options exist.
“People will fall back to what works, and they won’t think about security in those critical moments, because they will need to find out what happens to their kids at school,” said Ksenia Ermoshina.
Sources: United24 Media, The New York Times, OONI, Verstka.
