On the night of 23 June 2026, Russian Twitch users encountered serious problems: the platform stopped playing streams without the use of a VPN. Users are receiving error code 2000 when attempting to start a stream.
- Twitch has stopped streaming in Russia without a VPN.
- Users receive error code 2000 when they try to start live streams.
- The problem has had the greatest impact on Moscow, St Petersburg and Novosibirsk.
- Roskomnadzor denies restricting access to Twitch.
- Problems with Discord and PUBG have also been reported.
Problem accessing Twitch
On the night of 23 June 2026, shortly after 01:00 Kyiv time, Russian users Twitch People began complaining en masse about problems with streaming playback. The platform stopped loading video streams, causing considerable concern amongst gamers and streamers.
Users report that when they try to play any stream, the player displays «Error code #2000». This code indicates a network connection failure between the user’s player and Twitch’s content delivery network (CDN) servers. Streams either fail to start at all or freeze within the first few seconds.
Why does this happen?
It is worth noting that the Twitch website itself, user profiles and text chat rooms are operating as normal. Users can read and post messages in real time. However, the use of tools to bypass blocks, such as VPN, the streams start playing straight away without any errors.
According to data from monitoring services, the highest number of complaints has been recorded in major cities such as Moscow, St Petersburg and Novosibirsk, as well as in the Krasnoyarsk Krai and the Sverdlovsk Oblast. The problem mainly affects home internet users, whilst streams continue to load without a VPN for some mobile operators, though the situation remains unstable.
Official comments
Twitch’s official status monitoring page states that all of the platform’s systems are operating perfectly and that there are no global internal outages. Meanwhile, the press office Roskomnadzor stated that they are not imposing any restrictions on the streaming platform.
Other access issues
This is not the only problem Russian users have encountered. On the same day, there were widespread reports of problems accessing other popular gaming and communication services, including Discord and the online game PUBG: Battlegrounds, which also stopped working reliably without a VPN. Experts believe this may be the result of yet another round of «training exercises» or targeted blocking by the TSPU, which is controlled by the Russian security services.
