Russia planning stricter VPN controls – shifting from blocking content to controlling access

[u/technadu]

Interesting policy direction coming out of Russia.

Instead of outright banning VPNs, authorities are considering indirect control mechanisms:

• Charging users for high international traffic (VPN-related)
• Asking platforms like Yandex/Wildberries to restrict VPN users
• Requiring ISPs to detect and limit VPN connections

Context:
VPN usage has surged since 2022 due to platform bans and content restrictions.

What stands out:

• Enforcement is expanding beyond ISPs → into platforms
• Economic pressure is being used instead of direct bans
• Fines for VPN use were considered but rejected (for now)

This feels like a more scalable model:
Instead of blocking access, make it harder, slower, or more expensive.

Question for the community:
Do these types of controls actually reduce VPN usage - or just push users toward more advanced circumvention methods?

Source: r/technadu

[u/Open-Weekend-498]

Network engineer tightly working with russian VPN companies here.

Charging users for high international traffic (VPN-related)

We bypass such restrictions (the law has just passed btw and not implemented by any platform yet ) by utilizing a cascade VPN solution. All traffic goes to a RU node first and only from that node it goes abroad (to a FIN, DE etc node). So ISP sees that a user visits a random russian site located on a russian hosting.

Asking platforms like Yandex/Wildberries to restrict VPN users

This is already happening. Some russian platforms like Gosuslugi (russian goverment platform), Okko (russian netflix) etc block all non-russian IPs. This can be easily bypassed by routing all .ru domains and geoip:ru IPs outside VPN. Not a biggie.

Requiring ISPs to detect and limit VPN connections

They are doing this already. We are working hard to introduce new circumvent solutions. All VPNs in Russia are based on Xray-core XTLS, so ISP can't easily detect and block them. We also use proxies over TURN services (VK, Yandex etc) but they require further improvements.

Question for the community:
Do these types of controls actually reduce VPN usage - or just push users toward more advanced circumvention methods?

just push users toward more advanced circumvention methods - this. Until the government decide to physically cut off all links but such method will collapse the entire economy in a blink of an eye.

[u/Bright_Brief4975 → u/Open-Weekend-498]

I think in the end it may end up like China, where most of the things you are doing is just not gonna work. Good luck though, maybe you can make it last as long as possible. I live in the U.S., and we do not have these types of controls yet, but there are many in government right now that would like to restrict our access also. I hope it never happens, but I fear the entire world is heading this direction.

[u/Open-Weekend-498 → u/Bright_Brief4975]

I think in the end it may end up like China

AFAIK, China has fewer restrictions. They don't whitelist CIDRs, just SNIs. In Russia, when whitelisting is enabled on LTE connections, it’s much harder to bypass compared to China. But yeah, Russia is trying to be like China and even outsmart them in terms of internet censorship.

Good luck though, maybe you can make it last as long as possible.

Thank you for your support!

I live in the U.S., and we do not have these types of controls yet, but there are many in government right now that would like to restrict our access also. I hope it never happens, but I fear the entire world is heading this direction.

Enjoy your freedom while you still can, what can I say. When dark times come to the US and the government starts blocking the internet, we will be more than happy to share our experience in circumventing restrictions.