Github is down for Russian developers because some anti-Putin political activists are eager to make a point.

It works like this:

- they push some content deemed illegal in Russia to a github repo (something like instructions on committing suicide or on growing marijuana).

- then they themselves post a complain to the Russian internet regulator, accompanied by the link to illegal content;

- the ugly bureaucrats machine (which is mostly automatic) bans the whole of Github.

- at some point later in the day a human intervenes and unblocks the site, as happened several times in the past.

However, by that time the media has picked up the story, and many oppressed Russian developers who don't know how to use a US proxy, have received job offers.