On 30 January 2020, the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus outbreak a global. COVID-19 quickly spread. No country has been left untouched by the 'crowned demon'. The pandemic has proven to be an unprecedented challenge for governments of many countries. In Russia, lockdown restrictions were placed on the sphere of business, trade and on the services sector. This article focuses on the ways in which Russian universities had to re-organize their learning process during the pandemic as well as on the experiences of students and teachers in online learning. It explores the attitudes towards online learning and the current assessment of its quality by all involved; it also discusses the measures taken by the universities and governments to support students and faculty. We examined the managerial approaches applied by universities; normative regulation acts of the government and universities; the available statistical data and sociological survey data. Analysis has shown that all Russian universities can be divided into two groups: those that have reached advanced stages of digital transformation and 'digital newcomers'. During the pandemic, while more advanced institutions opted for synchronous forms of learning, the latter had to choose asynchronous forms. At the beginning of the pandemic, 13% of Russian universities did not have a high-speed Internet access. Our analysis of the normative regulatory acts of different institutional systems has revealed a variety of measures realized on different levels of the education system. Our study has also brought to light some interesting patterns in student and faculty levels of satisfaction with distance learning as well as benefits, drawbacks and risks of these forms of learning. 88% of teachers are skeptical about the virtual mode of learning and believe that in-person classroom learning is far superior. The share of students who reported being completely satisfied with online education dropped from 21% to 14% during the two months of the pandemic. 34% of students do not find remote learning less effective than in-person forms. The conclusion is made that universities' experience of online learning during the pandemic revealed not only the potential of digital technologies but also their limitations.