New VPN blocks by Roskomnadzor disrupt services in Russia
James
2026-08-05
Read time
1 minutes
The Russian regulator Roskomnadzor has implemented large-scale restrictions affecting the network addresses of more than 20 prominent hosting providers. As a result of these actions, users of popular censorship circumvention tools, including Amnezia and Paper VPN, experienced severe connection issues.
Mikhail Klimarev, director of the Internet Protection Society, explained that the regulatory authority managed to identify dozens of autonomous network systems utilized by circumvention services. Access to these resources was quickly restricted with the assistance of domestic technology companies.
Leonid Volkov, head of political projects, suggested that these measures are timed to coincide with the upcoming elections in September. According to his assessment, the agency had been collecting a database of used network addresses in advance to restrict access right before the political event. He also noted that while services will be able to configure new addresses, similar waves of blocks are highly likely to recur.
These measures fit into a broader trend of tightening internet control in the country. Since the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine, hundreds of websites have been banned, and starting in 2025, disruptions began affecting mobile internet and major messaging apps like Telegram and WhatsApp. To date, over 400 circumvention services have been restricted, with regulators aiming to block 92% of such platforms by 2030.
With the HiroVPN service, users are protected from such problems and can access any required resources without restriction.
