- Russian authorities have extended the deadline to enforce charges on VPN use until after the September elections
- At the same time, a wave of “more aggressive, targeted” VPN restrictions has been recorded
- A group of popular Telegram proxies have also reportedly stopped working
Last week’s news that the Russian government agreed to stop VPN fees until after the election (expected in September) probably gave residents a sigh of relief. That comfort didn’t last long, however, as the Kremlin continues to redouble its war on VPNs and similar apps.
“Right now all VPNs in Russia are really suffering. The situation doesn’t look good,” a spokesperson at Russian digital rights group RKS Global told TechRadar.
The group confirmed that Russian authorities have launched a new major wave of blocking in the past few weeks, which includes even “more aggressive and targeted” restrictions.
TechRadar found many Reddit posts published this week lamenting problems with VPNs working in Russia. The affected VPNs include Amnezia VPN, a service that uses obfuscation technologies (such as AmenziaWG and X-Ray protocols) built to work in highly restricted networks.
Speaking to TechRadar, Amenzia VPN founder Mazay Banzaev confirmed it IP addresses and subnets are currently blocked “on a massive scale.” This causes some servers and locations to become inaccessible to users, he explained.
“At the same time, we also see signs of increased control of VLESS traffic and possible use of new methods to limit it,” Banzaev said. VLESS is the technology behind Amnezia’s X-Ray protocol, which is specifically designed to avoid heavy blocks and deep packet inspection (DPI).
The most significant blockage appears to have occurred last week. Russian tech outlet Kod Durova (or Durova Code in English) reported an “unprecedented number of complaints” lamenting the unavailability of Telegram’s censorship-resistant capabilities.
A source familiar with the matter told Kod Durova that Russia’s censorship agency, Roskomnadzor, appears to have “found another vulnerability in the MTProto proxy mechanism in Telegram, causing them to stop working en masse.”
The Kremlin’s War on VPNs
The Kremlin’s war on VPNs is nothing new, but it got particularly tough over the spring.
In late March, Russia’s Ministry of Digital Development announced a new plan to “reduce VPN use” just after popular messaging app Telegram became the latest service to be restricted in the country.
According to the plan, Russian providers must detect and block VPN connections from April 15. Failure to do so may lead to the loss of their IT accreditation.
Researchers at RKS Global now suggest that the most popular apps in the country can now all know if someone is using a VPN. For this, the group recommends avoiding using Max or other Russia-based applications on the same device where you need a working VPN connection.
This method seems to work. An anonymous source based in Russia told TechRadar that they experienced better connections in May than in April after they avoided using Russian apps. “Maybe it’s my behavior away from Yandex, Ozon and Wildberries,” they told us.
The next step is to enforce new fees for VPN users, a surcharge for those who exceed 15GB of international data per month. This move, which was expected to be enforced on May 1, initially encountered some technical delays. Now the government has decided to postpone it until the election.
However, Roskomnadzor made it clear – the goal is to block 92% of VPN apps by 2030. To do so, the agency is investing 20 billion rubles a year in an effort to build a permanent VPN censorship system.
Despite technical hurdles, VPNs have so far continued to adapt to new censorship tactics and bypass blocks. Now it remains to be seen whether this cat-and-mouse game will continue to swing in favor of VPNs.
That said, Banzaev told TechRadar that the team is already working to restore the availability of infrastructure while adapting the service to the new conditions.
“To compensate for the inconvenience, we have automatically extended all Amnezia Premium subscriptions by two weeks,” he said, suggesting trying swicth protocol or locations when facing disruptions.
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