‘They are already deliberately failing to comply with the watchdog’s requirements’: will VPN services be blocked in Russia?

Peskov admitted in 2022 that he uses a VPN

The evolution of Russian legislation regarding VPN services began in 2017, when President Vladimir Putin signed a law banning means of bypassing blocking, including anonymizers and VPN technologies that allow access to sites recognized as undesirable. This law was quickly promoted on the initiative of FSB head Alexander Bortnikov. At the same time, Russia’s communications watchdog established the Main Radio Frequency Centre — a department whose purpose was to study and develop methods for blocking various Internet services, including VPN.

At the same time, in 2022, the presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov said that he himself uses a VPN. He emphasized that the installation of such services in Russia is not illegal, and explained that he needs a VPN to access “good” Western social networks, which he called “high technology.”

Nevertheless, the policy of restrictions continues: since 1 March, 2024, the watchdog has received the right to demand blocking in app stores of all VPN services that provide the ability to bypass blocking of prohibited resources, such as Instagram *.

Currently, a year later, the Russian authorities are considering new measures regarding VPN. This time, it is proposed to introduce fines of up to 500 thousand rubles for distributing advertising for such services.

At the same time, Russians will be able to freely use VPN for any legal purposes. “But if someone wants to commit a crime using such services, this will be considered an aggravating circumstance,” said Anton Gorelkin, deputy head of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy.

“People will not want to become violators”

The VPN saga may end badly for those behind them. Some Internet users are actively discussing their upcoming blocking. However, Positive Technologies believes that this will not affect their availability for users.

“Fines will not affect the availability of VPNs in any way, since almost all the services currently in use are foreign. They are already deliberately failing to comply with Roskomnadzor's requirements, which is why they are blocked,” said Alexey Lukatsky, business consultant on information security at Positive Technologies.

But will users themselves want to become “criminals”?

People or businesses: who will get more?

Some users expressed concerns for businesses, where VPN is needed not only to access prohibited sites. But Insaf Nabiullin, a first-category engineer at the Information Security Department of one of the IT companies, said that in the situation with blocking, users themselves will suffer more, “since completely different rules and services apply for businesses.” He refuted the idea that this area of IT technologies could lose specialists after such bans.

The expert warned VPN users in Russia that they should carefully take care of security, since free services do not provide sufficient protection.

“It is impossible to find the right VPN, especially a free one, since, from the point of view of information security, all data will fly to where you connect. It is advisable to have a paid VPN, but it does not guarantee the protection of personal data. Some people rent servers in other countries and make their own VPN. This is much better and safer,” concluded Nabiullin.