The FSB’s Second Service (Service for the Protection of Constitutional Order and Combating Terrorism) has taken control of Russia’s internet and is behind the blocking of WhatsApp and Telegram and the crackdown on VPNs, the independent Russian business outlet The Bell reports, citing sources.

The Second Service began imposing restrictions on the Russian internet at least as early as the summer of 2025, industry sources told the outlet. One said the Second Service drove the restrictions on voice calls in WhatsApp and Telegram introduced last August. Another source told The Bell that around that time, Second Service chief Alexei Sedov met with Vladimir Putin, at which Sedov promised the president he would “bring order to the internet” and was given a free hand to do so.

At one of the Digital Development Ministry’s meetings with telecom operators and internet companies in late March 2026, officers from the Second Service were present. Participants were told they had no choice — they were required to take action against tools used to circumvent internet restrictions.

“The whole thing looked completely absurd — they just printed out sheets of paper [ordering companies to fight VPNs], handed them to the heads of every company, told them to sign, and immediately took the sheets back. Anyone who refused was threatened with consequences,” an IT industry source told The Bell.

Russian tech company executives were not accustomed to being treated this way, The Bell notes, but one participant in the meetings said “everything changed because the FSB’s Second Service seized the initiative” in the sector, with its representatives now “showing up everywhere and calling all the shots.” A telecom operator employee confirmed this account to the outlet.

A source in the payment services industry told The Bell that several weeks ago, at the demand of the Second Service, inspectors carried out checks at several major payment platforms. Inspectors asked whether the companies were processing user payments for VPN services. The largest operators of such payments — including the YuMoney service, which belongs to Sberbank — were ordered to stop processing them immediately, the source said.

The FSB’s Second Service (Service for the Protection of Constitutional Order and Combating Terrorism) carries out political persecution. Its officers were involved in attempts to poison opposition figures Alexey Navalny and Vladimir Kara-Murza.

In late March, Russia’s Digital Development Ministry held a meeting with the heads of major Russian companies at which ministry chief Maksut Shadayev said companies would be required to block access to their platforms for users with a VPN enabled by April 15. Companies whose services continued to work with a VPN active were threatened with removal from “white lists” and loss of their IT accreditation from the ministry. By April 15, many Russian services had stopped working when a VPN was enabled.