Russia’s internet shutdowns push state firms back to landline phones

Russian state-owned companies spent more than three times as much on landline telephones in the first eight months this year as in the same period in 2025, as mobile internet shutdowns affecting nearly 80% of the country push ministries and businesses to seek alternatives to disrupted networks.

Procurement data cited by the Russian business daily Vedomosti show spending at 118 million roubles (€1.26 million) from January through August, with the number of purchase tenders up 12.5%.

Purchases are concentrated in the country’s largest business and infrastructure hubs.

Market participants told Vedomosti that the surge was driven by the restrictions, a shift by Russian ministries and companies to domestically produced software-based PBX systems after Western vendors withdrew from the Russian market following the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, and demand for secure communications channels.

Russia began systematically shutting down mobile internet access in May 2025, when services went offline in more than 40 regions ahead of Victory Day celebrations. What were initially episodic outages quickly became routine.

An independent monitoring project recorded 655 mobile internet outages in June 2025, rising to 2,099 in July, a figure that exceeded the worldwide total for the entire previous year, according to analysts.

The disruptions have hit banking, taxi services, food delivery and navigation, particularly in rural areas.

The authorities have justified the shutdowns as a defence against Ukrainian drones, which they say are guided via mobile internet signals.

Experts have disputed this, saying drones can fly preset routes without a network connection, and the shutdowns have reached regions far from the front line.

In March, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the presidential administration “uses landline telephones” when asked how restrictions in central Moscow affect the work of the president’s office.

Shortly after, head of state telecoms company Rostelecom Mikhail Oseyevsky urged Russians to return to fixed lines.

“Like a fire extinguisher, there should be one in every home," Oseyevsky said.

Russia has approximately 12.2 landline telephones per 100 residents. In Moscow, around 2 million households use fixed lines provided by MGTS, the city’s main telephone operator.

Across the country, there are about 17.4 million urban household landline connections.

The Ministry of Economic Development forecasts that the number of all landlines will fall to between 8.2 and 8.5 per 100 residents by 2029.