- Russia’s Roskomnadzor issued 212 VPN -blocking orders against Google Play between March and April 2025
- Out of these targeted VPNs only 6 apps are not available in the country’s app store
- In contrast, it turned out that Apple had killed at least 60 VPN -Apps in 2024 alone at Roskomnadzor’s request
Russia’s Censorship Body Roskomnadzor issued 212 VPN blocking orders against Google between March and April 2025. However, only 6 apps seemed to have been removed so far, which brought the total number of inaccessible VPN services on Russia’s Google Play Store to 53.
Russian investigative journalist Maria Kolomychenko first discovered that Google received at least 47 VPN removal orders for some of the best VPN apps that started on March 12. After this revelation, researchers at Greatfire’s app censorship project began to analyze the availability of 399 VPN apps, to reveal that Roskomnadzor actually targeted 212 VPN-like tools.
Greatfire’s finding shows an escalation in the Kremlin’s war against VPNs. Unlike Apple that killed at least 60 VPN apps at Roskomnadzor’s request in 2024 alone, Google seems to have resisted most Russian VPN blocking requests so far.
214 Removal requests targeting 212 VPNs
Roskomnadzor’s match against VPN apps is certainly nothing new. Nevertheless, as Greatfire’s campaign and lawyer director, Benjamin Ismail, puts it: “The Russian government wages a whole war against VPNs and all other tools that allow Russian citizens to bypass censorship and surveillance.”
Specifically, Greatfire recorded a total of 214 removal orders issued against Google between March 12 and April 1, 2025. Among these targeted 212 Virtual Private Network (VPN) and similar apps such as VPN client and proxy tools.
Several of these requests were issued under a law enforced last March, which criminalizes the spread of information on ways of bypassing Internet restrictions – VPNs included. Nevertheless, it is nevertheless a crime in Russia to use a VPN.
As mentioned earlier, Google seems to have largely resisted Russia’s censorship requirements so far. In fact, Greatfire found that only 6 of the VPNs targeted by the last wave of Roskomnadzor requests are currently not available in the Play Store. These include the popular Service ExpressVPN.
A total of 53 VPN services proved to be inaccessible in Russia’s Google Play store. These include NordVPN, Cyberghost, Private Internet Access (Pia) and Astrill VPN.
Popular apps like Proton VPN, Mullvad and Amnezia VPN remain available through the Google Play stores in the country at the time of writing.
Interestingly, however, researchers found some discrepancies with Roskomnadzor’s own requests for dismantling, which in several cases targeted VPN apps that had already been removed.
ExpressVPN is an example of this as it seems to have been inaccessible on Russia’s Google Game at least since sometime between March and September 2024.
Another challenge is to determine when an app was removed as well as the exact cause of its inaccessibility. For example, in a blog post, Avast VPN confirmed the company’s decision to cease its operation in Russia after the Ukraine war. Several developers may also have been pressed by the government to leave the country’s app stores.
According to Ismail, this does not mean that censorship is not absent.
He said to Techradar: “Self -censorship is still censorship: It’s just a more indirect, systemic form, rather than a formal dismantling. And if it was eventually the developer’s only decision to take the app down as part of a wider withdrawal from the Russian market, we regret such a choice.”
AppCensorship now calls for greater independent supervision and transparency from tech platforms.
You can check the full list of inaccessible VPNs on Google Play here. If you are in Russia and are struggling to download the desired VPN, we recommend changing your App Store location or on Android, finding alternative sideloading options.
