Signal

Signal was never one of Russia’s biggest chat apps, but it was the one the state could least read. Its end-to-end encryption protects message content even from Signal itself, which made it popular with journalists, activists and anyone worried about surveillance. On 9 August 2024, Roskomnadzor blocked it, opening a run of messenger bans that would later reach Discord, Viber, Telegram and WhatsApp.

What Russia said, and what analysts saw

Roskomnadzor told the Interfax news agency that access was restricted because Signal had not met legal requirements needed “to prevent the use of the messenger for terrorist and extremist purposes”. Users began reporting failures on the morning of 9 August, one day after widespread YouTube outages. According to Meduza, internet freedom expert Mikhail Klimarev said the blocking had actually started on 8 August.

Outside Russia, the reading was different. UK Defence Intelligence said the block was meant to limit communication between people hostile to the Kremlin. Venezuela blocked Signal in the same week, after its disputed presidential election.

Can you still use Signal in Russia?

Partly. On the day of the block, the monitoring group NetBlocks found that Signal still worked once its built-in “censorship circumvention” setting was switched on, and Signal itself urged affected users to enable it under Settings, Privacy, Advanced. Registering a new account inside Russia is harder, and reports said it generally needed a VPN. The block has not been lifted: in February 2026, Amnesty International still listed Signal among the messengers Russia had shut off.

The first domino

Looking back, Signal was an early warning. The same week it went dark, Russian outlet Verstka reported that a WhatsApp ban was being prepared, and that is exactly what followed with the nationwide WhatsApp block in 2026. Two months after Signal, Roskomnadzor cut off Discord over 947 “illegal” items, and in 2026 it turned on Telegram for a second time. For the full record, see every app Russia restricts.