Iranian Communications Ministry said some 400 gigabytes of the country’s internet capacity was cut off due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The public relations manager of the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, Mehdi Salem, made the announcement in twitter on Saturday.

He said that according to the country’s network operations center, this “400 gigs” were provided by Russia’s largest digital services company Rostelecom through Ukraine and has been cut off since Saturday evening.

Salem added that since the network routes from Ukraine remain disrupted and takes a long time to reconnect, the ministry is seeking to establish alternative links through other international routes.

As Ukraine's internet service has been disrupted by Russia's invasion, Elon Musk’s company SpaceX has activated global satellite internet constellation Starlink for the Ukrainians.

Internet services on mobile phones and landlines were also disrupted Friday morning in the Iranian capital Tehran and the nearby city of Karaj.

The Iranian government has been blocking thousands of websites and top social media apps for years in a bid to control the flow of information.

Iranians were outraged last week when a group of 18 hardliners in a parliament committee claimed that they had ratified a bill to further restrict internet and social media access.

Some people reacted to the Friday disruption by blaming the authorities, saying the outage was a trial run for the plan to further restrict internet and social media.