- Amnezia VPN claims that Russian media regulator Roskomnadzor is actively DDoS-attacking its infrastructure
- The attacks began in late May, leaving both Amnezia Free and Premium users unable to switch servers or establish stable connections.
- Other bypass services like BlancVPN have also reported disruptions,
Russia’s federal media censor, Roskomnadzor, reportedly takes a much more hostile approach to Internet censorship.
Instead of simply blocking virtual private networks (VPNs), the agency is now accused of launching active Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks to take down VPN systems entirely.
The accusation comes from Amnezia VPN, a popular service that has been nearly non-functional for several days. The developers stated that the attacks have made it impossible for users to switch between servers, severely disrupting both its free and premium tiers.
According to a report by independent news outlet Meduza, Amnezia VPN users first started experiencing severe connection issues and app instability at the end of May. The service’s developers quickly identified the cause and pointed the finger directly at Russian state censors.
“For the first time, we can establish that Roskomnadzor has not only started blocking VPN servers, but actively attacking our infrastructure,” the developers announced. The agency has not commented on the allegations.
A coordinated cyber offensive
The developers attributed the widespread outages to “an unprecedented DDoS attack amid the targeted blocking of a large selection of Amnezia VPN IP addresses.”
While Amnesia representatives first reported the targeted attack on June 1, they also noted that several other unnamed VPN services “experienced accessibility issues” around the same time.
An unprecedented DDoS attack”
Amnesia VPN
Although the team initially estimated that restoring service would only take a few hours, the sheer scale of the outage has dragged out the recovery process.
On June 4, the developers stated that they were working to “find the most efficient way to restore stable operation of the services” and stressed that “work continues around the clock.” Amnezia VPN has promised to compensate its Premium users for the downtime.
The Escalating Battle for Russian Internet Freedom
This is not an isolated incident. Amnezia VPN had previously experienced outages in mid-May, which it blamed on “mass blocks related to the actions of censors.”
Around the same time, Russian users also reported widespread problems with the MTProto cryptographic protocol, which is used by Telegram to bypass blocks.
Another popular service, BlancVPN, also suffered major disruptions in late May and early June, although it reported on June 4 that much of its service had been restored.
A representative from BlancVPN told Meduza that the censorship landscape is rapidly deteriorating. They noted that there have been more blockages in 2026 than in 2025, and more in 2025 than in 2024.
As Roskomnadzor continues to refine its technical capabilities, VPN providers are forced to continuously develop new solutions. This latest alleged shift from passive blocking to active DDoS attacks indicates that the battle for digital privacy in Russia is entering a new phase.
