- Russia’s Roskomnadzor has intensified internet blocks across the country
- Google has reportedly received at least 47 requests for removal removal so far
- Cloudflare-Undernet was also theme-blocked, causing major disturbances on larger sites
Internet users in Russia have suffered a new wave of online disorders recently, with VPN apps and a larger DNS server provider are the goals.
As of March 12, 2025, Russia’s censor organ Roskomnadzor has allegedly hit Google with at least 47 removal of some of the best VPN apps from its Google Play store.
A few days later, on March 20, CloudFlare was also temporarily blocked. This results in large power cuts across several Russian regions, with many popular sites getting dark. Some VPN services also experienced connection problems due to DNS blocking.
Digital rights experts across the country now fear that this is just the beginning of additional blocks.
An increasingly limited internet
Roskomnadzor’s fight against VPN apps is nothing new, but the extent of Russia’s VPN blocking efforts continues to intensify.
So while almost 200 VPNs are already blocked across the country, Roskomnadzor has presented Google with some new removal orders.
A Russian journalist has spoken 47 new requests since March 12, with them as HidmynetVPN, Proxy Shield VPN and Safe VPN, which is among the goals. It is not yet clear whether Google has already complied with such orders at the time of writing.
This new wave of VPN -App removal from the Google Play store follows the same Modus Operandi that has brought Apple to kill about 60 VPN apps from its App Store in Russia between July and September, bringing the total amount to 98 inaccessible applications in the Big Tech Giant’s official store.
The orders appear to have been issued during a law enforced in March last year that criminalizes the spread of information on ways of bypassing Internet restrictions – VPNs included.
Home members were observed throughout Russia this week, with regulators attributing to them problems with foreign servers. Observers said the problems may be bound to Russian government movements to block Cloudflare Services https://t.co/bd0gu5g2c1March 20, 2025
Russia’s latest crusade against VPN services at the same time came Cloudflare -Undernet (a group of over 500K IP addresses within the network) were also blocked over the eastern part of the country, from Ural to Primorye.
About 1.5 million IP addresses were affected – a technical expert for Russian digital rights lawyer group Roskomsvoboda told Techradar. Like Tiktok, Steam, Twitch, Epic Games, Deepseek, Duolingo and mobile operator sites, all were inaccessible without VPN.
“VPN services have also experienced problems as they often have their own management infrastructure attached to Cloudflare,” Roskomsvoboda told Techradar, noting that Warp VPN, developed by Cloudflare, also stopped working.
When he comments on a Russian news agency, Roskomnadzor said officials “will carry out planned technical controls of the use of foreign server infrastructure of Russian services and telecommunications operators.”
While the incident is now resolved, Roskomsvoboda experts warn that the long-term plan may be blocking cloudflare completely, as Iran did.
“Judging by the scope of these ‘exercises’ this can happen quite soon,” the expert told Techradar, explaining that all the mobile apps and online services that depend on Cloudflare as a content delivery network (CDN) could soon stop working.
We contacted Cloudflare for comment, but are still waiting for a response at the time of publication.
