The authorities have begun a new wave of VPN blocks in Russia after the State Duma elections

The authorities have begun a new wave of VPN blocks in Russia after the State Duma elections

After the State Duma elections ended, the authorities sharply stepped up VPN blocking in Russia. At least 10 VPN services reported a new wave of restrictions over the past week, Verstka noted.

In particular, on the evening of September 25, one of the largest and best-known VPN services told users in an email about “increased blocking since the beginning of the week” (here and below, Verstka does not name the VPNs for security reasons).

According to the project’s team, restrictions peaked on Friday, September 25, and for many users the VPN began working with glitches or stopped connecting altogether.

“We assume that the blocking will not end here, so in parallel we are preparing backup solutions so that the next waves pass as unnoticed by you as possible. Other VPN services are now facing similar outages,” the email says.

Another major VPN service also reported a “new wave of mass blocking” that began on September 21. According to the project, because of this, eight servers had to be replaced in five days.

In addition, seven more VPN services published warnings about “new blocks” and outages in their Telegram channels. The team of one VPN project clarified that Roskomnadzor had blocked all of their foreign locations. Another service also had the IP addresses of all its servers blocked.

Alexey Kozlyuk, chairman of the VPN Guild, told Verstka that intensified blocking after the elections had been expected, but the organization does not consider it a “fundamentally new wave.”

“The picture is uneven: some services do not see a sharp jump after the elections, while others record that the pressure has noticeably increased. According to our observations, the pressure intensified back in early August. What is happening now, we see as a continuation and gradual ramping-up of that campaign,” Kozlyuk said.

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