(Berlin, September 24, 2026) – Russian authorities are doubling down on their efforts to quash freedom of expression, including access to information, by increasingly suppressing tools to circumvent draconian censorship laws, Human Rights Watch said today. Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) services face intensifying blocking and takedowns from app stores.
“The Russian government’s escalating attacks on censorship circumvention services is part of its broader assault on access to information, privacy, and freedom of expression,” said Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “These repressive tactics affect millions of people in Russia seeking to connect to the internet without state censorship.”
On August 4, 2026, Exploit media outlet reported that 20 Virtual Private Network (VPN) providers in Russia had faced service disruptions caused by the blockings carried out by the Russian authorities.
A representative of one of the affected VPN services told Human Rights Watch that the recent waves of blocking targeted VPN services’ infrastructure, namely, large blocks of IP addresses they use, including entire subnets of IP addresses allocated to them by their hosting service providers. Restoring VPN services following such bulk blocking can take more time and be more costly in comparison to previous more granular state blocking, the representative said.
In June, the authorities carried out a coordinated attack targeting Amnezia VPN, one of the most popular VPN services in Russia. One of Amnezia’s developers said that the authorities blocked its IP addresses in bulk, targeted employees with phishing emails in an attempt to obtain sensitive data, and used distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, which overwhelmed the service and disrupted its work. It took Amnezia one and a half months to fully restore its services.
The new tactics in state crackdown on VPNs have created significant technical, financial, and operational challenges and damaged their reputation as reliable services, Human Rights Watch said.
In April, the Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media instructed more than 20 of the largest internet companies, which together provide digital services to the vast majority of Russians, to gather information on their clients’ VPN use and deny access to services when detecting VPN connections.
According to a study published by RKS Global, a group of experts working on internet freedom, at least 30 of the largest Russian apps gathered this information. An expert at RKS Global told Human Rights Watch that the information included IP addresses used by the VPN services and was used in the recent attack on VPNs’ infrastructure.
Over the past decade, VPNs have become a lifeline for accessing millions of censored websites in Russia, including to access independent media, foreign social media and messaging platforms such as Instagram, YouTube, and WhatsApp. Since spring 2025, the authorities have increasingly carried out “whitelists” shutdowns, blocking access to all but state approved websites.
The 2017 law on VPN services prohibited them from providing access to state-blocked websites. By February 2026, the authorities had blocked at least 469 VPNs under this law. In 2025, the authorities banned advertising VPNs, introduced fines for “intentionally” searching for “extremist” content on the internet, including via VPNs, and classified the use of VPNs as an aggravating circumstance with regard to certain crimes. Nevertheless, the number of VPN downloads consistently grows, and about 40 percent of Russia’s population—57 million people—are estimated to use VPN.
In addition to direct blocking, Russian authorities increasingly pressure foreign technology companies to take down VPN apps from their app stores, Human Rights Watch said.
In its transparency report, Apple said that in 2025 it removed 468 “utility” applications, which includes VPNs, from its App Store. Overall, 1,213 applications were removed in response to Russian government requests, nearly 60 percent of all such removals globally.
In March 2026, Apple removed several popular VPNs—Streisand, V2Box, v2RayTun, Happ, and Proxy Utility—from its App Store. v2RayTun shared Apple’s removal notification, which cited a demand from Roskomnadzor, the state media and communications watchdog, on the grounds that the application “included content that is illegal in Russia.” The notice referred to part 7 of article 15.1 of Russia’s Law on Information, which the Russian authorities widely use to restrict privacy, freedom of expression, and access to information online.
In March 2026, the Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media ordered the four largest mobile service providers in the country to stop allowing payments to Apple account holders using mobile phone billing, a popular method for paying for VPNs.
In July, Human Rights Watch sent a letter to Apple, inquiring about company policy on VPN takedowns in Russia, as well as the exact number of VPNs taken down by Apple on the authorities’ demand. Apple responded that “[Apple is] required to follow the law everywhere we operate, even where we may disagree with a country’s laws. In Russia, failure to comply with lawful orders could result in Apple no longer being able to operate the App Store or distribute content in the country, and we believe that would not be in the best interests of our users, because the App Store remains an important platform for Russian users to access information.”
Russian authorities also repeatedly demanded that Google take down hundreds of VPN apps from its Play Store. In February, a Russian court fined Google 22.8 million rubles (around USD 300,000) for failure to remove VPN apps as authorities ordered. In July, both Apple and Google faced apparent blocking in Russia.
VPNs that do not collect their clients’ logs, or digital footprint, and do not transfer data to state authorities can ensure privacy of internet communications for their users, including against the advanced state surveillance system in Russia, Human Rights Watch said. By escalating their blocking of VPNs, the authorities push users to repeatedly change VPN service providers, with privacy and security risks, such as choosing a VPN service that stores data without their consent, or shares data with Russian authorities.
Multiple United Nations human rights institutions condemn restrictions on anonymity, including the blocking of VPNs, that are essential for safeguarding rights online, as violating the right to privacy, freedom of expression, access to information, the right to peaceful assembly, and other rights and freedoms. The 2015 UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression said in a report that anonymity and encryption are key for freedom of opinion and expression, and that blanket prohibitions fail necessity and proportionality criteria.
Foreign technology companies should resist Russian government pressure to take down VPNs from their app stores. Governments, intergovernmental institutions, groups, and foundations concerned with promoting human rights including freedom of expression, access to information, and other internet freedoms should continue developing and supporting the tools that maximize privacy, ensure anonymity, and enable internet users in Russia to circumvent draconian internet censorship.
“With the government escalating attacks on digital rights, it is crucial for groups working to ensure uncensored access to the internet in Russia receive financial, institutional, and other essential support,” Williamson said.