Rumours of a coup
Censorship in practice
Targeted shutdowns, open paranoia: Moscow fine-tunes its repressive tools
By Andrew Burlone
March 12 2025 • Op-Ed
Moscow is experiencing a series of mobile internet shutdowns that have triggered a new wave of headlines about an alleged “coup at the Kremlin,” but the available evidence points more to regime paranoia and a tightening of digital repression than to the imminent overthrow of Vladimir Putin.
In early March, users in Moscow and Saint Petersburg reported major disruptions to mobile internet and messaging services, with the most severe outages affecting areas around key government, military, and security sites. The Kremlin publicly presented these interruptions as measures taken “for security,” without providing detailed technical explanations, which in turn fuelled speculation.
The overlap between high‑level infighting and communication disruptions has created an ideal breeding ground for conspiracy‑laden narratives.
These outages come as a purge targets figures linked to former Defence Minister Sergueï Choïgou, notably the arrest on corruption charges of Rouslan Tsalikov, a close associate and the fourth former deputy defence minister to be indicted since Shoigu’s ouster in 2024. This overlap between high‑level power struggles and communication disruptions has provided fertile ground for conspiracy narratives.
At the heart of the story is the Telegram channel VChK‑OGPU, which claims to have sources within the Russian security services and suggests that the shutdowns were motivated by fears of a putsch by Shoigu’s clan. The channel itself, however, describes this scenario as a “conspiracy theory,” which has not prevented several British tabloids from using it as the basis for spectacular headlines about an anti‑Putin coup.
The Ukrainian outlet The Kyiv Independent has debunked these claims in a fact‑check focused on disinformation, quoting Russia specialists such as Anton Barbashin, co‑founder and editorial director of the analytical site Riddle Russia, and Stephen Hall, who both consider a coup highly unlikely and point out that Shoigu’s network has been weakened by systematic prosecutions. The investigation also situates this rumour within a broader pattern of recurring claims about Putin’s downfall or illness, driven as much by opponents’ hopes as by the hunt for sensational content.
‘The outages in Moscow thus appear more like a real‑world stress test of the regime’s censorship capabilities than a symptom of an internal uprising.’
At the same time, research centres such as the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) and its Critical Threats project have documented the Kremlin’s ongoing efforts to reassert control over the information space: expanding the FSB’s legal power to order shutdowns, tightening restrictions on Telegram, and promoting domestic apps designed to monitor online behaviour. The Moscow shutdowns look like a full‑scale test of these tools rather than evidence of an internal revolt.
So far, no one has confirmed the existence of an attempted putsch in Moscow. The available reports stick to the basics: outages, user complaints, and the Kremlin’s security justifications. What this episode does clearly expose, however, is a political signal: the purges, the geographic focus of the shutdowns, and the pressure on platforms all point to a leadership acutely aware of its vulnerabilities and preparing for the worst by ensuring it can cut digital channels quickly and precisely.
Moscow is rehearsing for a coup, not living through one: the shutdowns, rumours, and purges reveal a jittery authoritarian system whose first instinct in a crisis is to reach for the communications off‑switch.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of WestmountMag.ca.
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Andrew Burlone, co-founder of WestmountMag.ca, began his media journey at NOUS magazine. Subsequently, he launched Visionnaires, holding the position of creative director for over 30 years. Andrew is passionate about culture and politics, with a keen interest in visual arts and architecture.
