Moscow, Nov 11, (dpa/GNA) – A Russian region some 2,250 kilometres north-east of the border with Ukraine, is the first region in Russia to make public, a permanent shutdown of its mobile internet network in some areas due to Ukrainian drones.
Ulyanovsk on the Volga, announced the shutdown for strategic sites such as military airfields, arms factories and energy infrastructure, the regional government said on Tuesday. It did not say where exactly the permanent shutdowns would occur, citing security concerns.
“The reason for this is to strengthen security measures,” it said in a post on Telegram.
The post made clear that contrary to “some federal and regional sources” who had reported that the mobile internet shut down was for the entire Ulyanovsk region, the internet has been turned off only at selected sites.
The regional digital minister for the Ulyanovsk region, Oleg Yagfarov, said the restrictions were imposed at the behest of federal bodies, and would remain in force “until the end of the special military operation,” as Russia’s war against Ukraine officially called in Russia.
Until now, mobile internet has been switched off during air raid alerts in entire cities and regions, with outages sometimes lasting several hours.
In the capital Moscow and in other large cities such as St Petersburg and Samara, mobile operators tell customers who complain that the shutdowns are due to drone alerts.
What is new, however, is that, in Ulyanovsk, officials are now publicly talking about a geographically limited permanent shutdown.
Officials in Ulyanovsk recommended that residents in “blind zones” without mobile reception have an internet cable laid to their homes at their own expense.
The fear of Ukrainian drone attacks is now omnipresent in Russia. Because of the rising number of Ukrainian drone attacks, Russia is now also bringing in reservists to protect important facilities such as energy infrastructure.
GNA