Why Qwen is not working in Russia, and what to do
Qwen stops working for one of three reasons: an outage on the service side, a problem signing in, or Russia-specific limits on payment and the API. On the night of 28 August 2026 it was the first one, and Russian searches for «qwen не работает» ("qwen is not working") were twenty times their usual weekly level. Here is how to tell which case is yours, and where to use Qwen from Russia without it.
Why is Qwen not working?
Most often it is an outage on Alibaba's side: chat.qwen.ai does not load or will not let you sign in, and the complaint spike shows it. Less often the cause is your account or browser. And if an API payment or an Alibaba Cloud sign-up fails, that is not an outage but a standing limit on Russian cards and phone numbers. Work out which of the three you have first — it decides whether to wait or to change the route.
What happened to Qwen on 28 August 2026
Overnight from 27 to 28 August, users in Russia en masse could not open Qwen Studio — the current name of Alibaba's free chat at chat.qwen.ai. DownDetector data quoted by news sites put it at about 4,000 complaints in a day: about a third about the site as a whole, almost a fifth about signing in, most of them from Moscow, St Petersburg and the surrounding regions.
«Заблокировали» ("blocked") searches appeared at the same time, but according to press reports Roskomnadzor did not add Qwen to its registry: the site opened and the documentation loaded. Searches for "qwen not working" were back to 150–180 a week by September — the shape of an outage, not a block.
Symptom → cause → what to do
| What you see | Likely cause | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| chat.qwen.ai does not load or spins forever | Service or network outage | Check DownDetector. Many complaints means it is not you — wait. None means try another browser or the Qwen Studio app |
| The site opens but will not sign you in | Auth outage or a stale session | Sign out, clear cookies for chat.qwen.ai and sign in the same way you registered |
| An answer cuts off or errors halfway | Service overload or a very long request | Retry later, or split a long document into parts |
| An Alibaba Cloud API payment is declined | Russian cards are not accepted there | A standing limit, not an outage. You need an intermediary that bills in rubles — see below |
| No verification code at Alibaba Cloud sign-up | Russian numbers are reported as refused | Also a standing limit: the API without an Alibaba account means an intermediary |
Qwen Studio and the API are different doors
The free chat at chat.qwen.ai and the paid Alibaba Cloud (Model Studio) API work separately. The 28 August outage hit the chat; the card and phone limits apply to the API. One not working does not mean the other is unavailable.
Where to use Qwen from Russia when chat.qwen.ai will not open
Qwen models are not only on Alibaba's site. An intermediary reaches them over the API on its own account, so you need no Alibaba Cloud sign-up, foreign card or number, and chat.qwen.ai sign-in problems do not touch you — it is a different door. In the Twelver chat the model is picked per task and Qwen can be pinned to an agent on Pro; the API bills in rubles and serves Qwen 3.8 Max, 3.8 Flash and 3.7 Plus.
How the three models differ, what each costs over the API and how to get a key is in the Qwen family guide. Which other AI services are available from Russia is in Which neural networks work in Russia.
Frequently asked questions
Why is Qwen not working?
Was Qwen blocked in Russia?
How do I pay for Qwen from Russia?
Try it yourself
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