The Kremlin keeps blocking virtual private network (VPN) providers to restrict Russian citizens' access to independent sources of information.
"On July 27, blocking authorities reached AdGuard VPN. Regrettably, their methods were crude, and along with AdGuard VPN, the entire adguard.com domain became unavailable for Russian users. This led to multiple issues with AdGuard Ad Blocker and AdGuard DNS service," AdGuard said in a block post.
A few months ago, Russian media reported about Russian communications watchdog, Rosskomnadzor's plans to restrict the operations of seven VPN services, namely Windscribe VPN, Proton VPN, Browsec VPN, VPN Proxy Master, VPN-super unlimited proxy, Melon VPN, and VPN RedCat secure unlimited.
Many VPN providers figured out workarounds to continue serving their Russian clients.
"Experimental #Russian anti-blocking mitigations are deployed as of last Friday. Users in Russia should see an alternative list of locations, only those in Europe and east coast North America will work (all others will appear offline), via IKEv2 and WireGuard protocols only," Windscribe tweeted in June.
In March, Alexander Khinshtein, a member of the Russian State Duma, said at least 20 VPN services were being blocked in Russia at a time.
Last year, Russia banned Hola!VPN, ExpressVPN, KeepSolid VPN Unlimited, Nord VPN, Speedify VPN, and IPVanish VPN.
Restrictions of popular VPN services are seen as the Kremlin's attempt to steer people back to the government-controlled information resources. According to the latest report by App Magic, Russia ranks second in VPN app downloads, with 12 million downloads in the first three weeks of July.
Your email address will not be published. Required fields are markedmarked