In Russia, on the morning of 14 July, users began reporting widespread problems accessing the Google, Apple, GitHub and Samsung websites. Complaints came from Moscow, St Petersburg and other major cities. Roskomnadzor stated that it was not restricting access to GitHub, Google and Apple, whilst the status pages for GitHub and Apple showed no global outages.
Briefly about the main points
- Reports of GitHub being unavailable emerged before reports concerning other services.
- Downdetector recorded reports from 33 cities regarding GitHub and Apple.
- Roskomnadzor has denied restricting access to the three platforms.
- Access via the VPN was restored, but this does not prove the cause of the incident.
- For some Apple subscribers, it was available depending on their mobile network operator.
Complaints have spread to dozens of towns
The very first widespread reports concerned GitHub; subsequently, users began to complain about Google, Apple and Samsung. The monitoring services Downdetector and «Sboy.rf» recorded a sharp rise in reports of HTTPS connection time-outs.
According to CNews, citing Downdetector, reports of issues with GitHub and Apple came from 33 cities, and reports of issues with Google came from 19. These figures indicate that the problem is widespread across different regions, but do not confirm that the services are completely unavailable throughout Russia.
Access depended on the operator and the service
Reports of the incident suggested that the problem may have varied across different networks. SecPost reported that Apple’s website was inaccessible to some Beeline subscribers, but could be accessed by MTS users. At the same time, according to some reports, the App Store continued to function.
Users have also reported that access has been restored via VPN. This indicator is consistent with a regional network issue or traffic filtering, but does not in itself identify the source or technical mechanism behind it. OONI warns that network anomalies without an explicit blocking page may result in false positives.
Roskomnadzor denies imposing restrictions
Roskomnadzor has stated that it «is not restricting access» to GitHub services, Google. and Apple. Samsung was not mentioned in the agency’s statement. The regulator did not explain the technical cause of the disruptions and did not comment on the difference between direct access and connection via a VPN.
GitHub and Apple’s public status dashboards showed that key services were operating normally that day. There was no general outage reported on GitHub Status that could explain the complaints from Russia; Apple System Status also indicated that key services, including the App Store and iCloud, were available. There were no specific public statements from Google, Apple, GitHub or Samsung regarding this incident.
What might explain the incident
The available data does not allow us to determine exactly who caused the problems. Possible explanations include an error or a change in routing within providers’ networks, malfunctioning filtering systems, or deliberate traffic restrictions. The theory that new filtering mechanisms were being tested has not been technically confirmed.
At the same time, the fact that complaints have been made about several foreign platforms simultaneously, the absence of any global incidents at GitHub and Apple, and the ability to access the service via a VPN provide grounds for investigating this version problems with Russia’s network infrastructure. This is an analytical hypothesis, not an established fact. Back in May, users in Russia had already reported problems with GitHub, and at that time Roskomnadzor also denied that any restrictions were in place.
