Control over legitimate VPNs will be tightened to prevent blocking circumvention
Daniel
2026-08-04
Read time
1 minutes
The Russian Ministry of Digital Development plans to work with hosting providers to tighten the monitoring of IP addresses belonging to approved VPN services. These addresses are part of a special exclusion list managed by the monitoring center. A continuous tracking system is proposed to detect servers masquerading as approved platforms to bypass network restrictions.
If suspicious infrastructure is detected, hosting providers will have to verify the legitimate use of their servers or remove the address from the exemption list. Enforcement actions will depend on how users are identified. For clients who only verified their identity via a phone number or bank card, services may be suspended within thirty minutes. When government systems or biometrics are used, customers will be given time to resolve violations, though repeated incidents could lead to the blocking of entire provider subnets.
Since February 2024, only hosting providers listed in the regulator's official register can legally operate in the country, with 584 organizations registered by mid-2026. Specialists express concern about potential false blockings due to the practice of leasing network addresses. Furthermore, industry representatives predict that strict identification requirements could drive up to 35% of clients to foreign hosting providers.
For reference, hosting providers supply the server capacity to host various resources, including VPN services. Meanwhile, the government identification system connects citizens' online activities with their official documents.
With the HiroVPN service, users remain protected from such infrastructure restrictions and blocks.
