Travel · Europe and Asia

Working from Russia with a Mac: internet, eSIMs and what’s blocked

Russia’s internet has changed fast since 2022. Western platforms have been blocked one after another, mobile internet is cut in many regions with only a list of approved services left working, and getting a local SIM now takes biometrics. This guide describes the situation as reported up to the date checked; it changes often.

Travel advice. The UK government advises against all travel to Russia, citing the continuing invasion of Ukraine¹. Check your own government’s advice before you consider going.

Region: Europe and Asia
Blocked: WhatsApp, FaceTime, Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram, Signal, Viber and Google Meet²³; Telegram restricted².
Calls: Calls in WhatsApp and Telegram restricted since August 2025²; FaceTime blocked³.
SIM rule: Foreigners need biometrics, a Gosuslugi account and a SNILS number for a Russian SIM⁷.
VPN law: The law targets VPN services and VPN advertising⁸⁹; searching on purpose for “extremist” material is fined, VPN or not⁸.

Checked 1 November 2026. Rules and blocks change, sometimes overnight. Each claim links to its source; where a source and this page differ, the source wins.

What’s blocked or restricted

The regulator, Roskomnadzor, has blocked or restricted most Western communication services, and authorities push people towards the state-backed messenger Max²³.

Messaging and calls. Roskomnadzor blocked WhatsApp, FaceTime and Snapchat in December 2025³. In February 2026 WhatsApp said the government was trying to block it fully, and the Kremlin confirmed the regulator was blocking it². Telegram has had new restrictions since 10 February 2026².
Social networks and meetings. Facebook, Instagram, Signal, Viber and Google Meet were blocked earlier³. In February 2026, YouTube, Facebook and Instagram also appeared to have been removed from Russia’s national DNS².
Mobile internet shutdowns. Mobile internet is switched off in many regions, in Moscow and Saint Petersburg as well in March 2026, with officials citing drone threats⁴. During a shutdown, only services on a government “whitelist” are meant to keep working: government services, domestic platforms, banks, shops and taxis⁴. Even listed sites sometimes fail to load⁴.

Monitoring groups say most regions now face daily disruptions, and President Putin has defended the outages and declined to give advance notice of them⁵. Plan for mobile data to vanish without warning. When a service won’t load at all, Kilobat can identify signs of a network block or a service’s own regional refusal, though the result can be inconclusive. See blocked here, not down.

Calling apps

Since August 2025 Roskomnadzor has restricted voice and video calls in WhatsApp and Telegram, which it describes as an anti-fraud measure². FaceTime is blocked³, and Google Meet was blocked earlier³.

Ordinary phone calls through a carrier aren’t internet calls, so the app restrictions don’t apply to them. In the March 2026 Moscow shutdown, though, people lost mobile calls as well as mobile internet⁴.
For work meetings, check in advance which app both sides can reach. A mobile shutdown can take any internet call down at the same time⁴.

How mobile data reaches your Mac

There are three ways to get mobile data to your Mac, and each has a catch in Russia.

A foreign SIM, roaming. Roaming data can pass through your home carrier¹⁰, but availability and filtering vary. UK travel advice says non-Russian SIMs may lose internet and SMS. Any SIM absent from a Russian network for 72 hours may initially lose these services for several hours to several days¹³.
A travel eSIM. These can exit through an operator in a third country¹⁰¹¹. A roaming eSIM can also face service disruption; check with the provider before travel¹³.
A Russian SIM. Traffic goes through the Russian network, so the blocks and the whitelist during shutdowns apply in full⁴. Getting one takes several days of paperwork for a foreigner⁶.

Shutdowns hit the mobile network in the affected area, whichever SIM you use⁴. Wi-Fi on a fixed line may be the only connection that works.

What the law says about VPNs

Russian law targets VPN services and certain uses of them more than VPN use itself.

Russian law already bars VPN services from giving access to blocked sites, and until mid-2025 individual VPN users had not faced legal consequences⁹.
Since 1 September 2025, searching online on purpose for material deemed “extremist” is a misdemeanour, including when using a VPN, with fines of 3,000 to 5,000 roubles⁸.
The same law fines anyone who advertises VPNs, from 50,000 to 80,000 roubles for individuals and up to 500,000 for companies⁸.
The digital development minister said in March 2026 that reducing VPN use is a priority for his ministry⁵.

According to the digital development minister, prosecutors must prove that a search was intentional⁸. What counts as “extremist” is decided by Russian authorities.

SIM and eSIM registration

Since 1 January 2025, foreign nationals must register their biometrics to get a Russian SIM card⁷.

You need a passport with a notarised translation, a SNILS insurance number, your migration card and registration slip, a confirmed Gosuslugi account, biometrics recorded at a bank, and your phone’s IMEI⁷.
At the bank, an officer records your biometrics and asks you to repeat a sequence of numbers in Russian⁷.
No more than 10 active SIM cards per person; the SIM is activated through a notification in your Gosuslugi account⁷.

Hotel and café Wi-Fi

Hotels, cafés and coworking spaces on fixed broadband are often the steadier connection, because the shutdowns so far have targeted mobile networks⁴. A fixed line is still a Russian connection, so the same sites stay blocked.

A law signed in February 2026 lets the security service order fixed-line blocks without a court order⁴, so don’t count on hotel Wi-Fi either.
Sign-in pages are ordinary web pages. If one never appears, see why the Wi-Fi sign-in page doesn’t show.

Prepare your Mac before you go

Prepare as if mobile data won’t be there when you need it.

Download documents, installers, updates and anything stored in blocked services before you go.
For two-factor sign-in, an authenticator app calculates codes on your device from a shared secret and the clock¹², so codes work offline when SMS is unavailable.
Save offline maps, tickets and addresses. Maps and taxi apps were among what failed in the Moscow shutdowns⁴.
Agree a fallback with family and colleagues, such as an ordinary phone call, since calls in WhatsApp and Telegram are restricted².

Where Kilobat helps

Kilobat checks your connection and the service to help you investigate what may be wrong.

Is it them or me, or blocked here? Kilobat checks your connection and the service’s status page. It may identify signs of a network block or a service’s own regional refusal; results can be inconclusive. See blocked here, not down and “not available in your region” answers.
Hotel Wi-Fi sign-in. Kilobat can notice a sign-in page and offers a button to open it. With Pro, it can warn before a session expires once it has learned its usual length. See hotel Wi-Fi login on a Mac.
Leak test. The VPN leak test checks for selected DNS, IPv6 and UDP leaks. Passing these checks does not prove that all traffic uses the VPN. See proxies and VPNs.
Hotspot data saver and data packs. Roaming data is expensive. The Travel profile holds back backups and updaters, and a budget that starts over only when you reset it matches a fixed data pack. See save hotspot data.
Call reports. After each call, Kilobat says whether it froze and why, so a shutdown isn’t mistaken for bad Wi-Fi. See video calls and Kilobat for digital nomads.

Guides for the road: Wi-Fi login page does not appear on a Mac, Mac uses Personal Hotspot data in the background, Set a monthly data budget that resets on renewal day and Find why one site or API won't connect.

Sources

Checked on 1 November 2026. Government, regulator and travel-advice pages come first where they exist; news outlets and research cover what officials don’t publish, such as which services are blocked. This page explains the situation; it isn’t legal advice.

Know whether it’s the network, the country or you

Kilobat is a Mac menu-bar app that checks your own line, the Wi-Fi sign-in page and the service’s status page, guards a hotspot’s data and reports on every call.

Download for Mac ↓

$ brew install seifip/kilobat/kilobat