Russia Tests System to Block VPN Users From Global Internet

Russia has begun testing a new system capable of cutting off access to the global internet, with early reports indicating that even virtual private networks, known as VPNs, are unable to circumvent these restrictions. This marks a significant escalation in the country's efforts to establish what it calls a "sovereign internet."

According to a recent report by NetBlocks, The Russian government already trialed its capacity to shut down internet access in Dagestan. Local news outlet Chernovik reported that the block lasted 24 hours and extended to Chechnya and Ingushetia

"Many sites, including ours, the Russian ones, don’t load. Nothing works!" one of the readers of Chernovik who lived in Makhachkala reported. The local news shared that services like YouTube, Telegram, and even taxi apps stopped working.

"Regarding the ongoing Roskomnadzor exercises to develop scenarios for disabling access to the foreign segment of the internet, today, [Dec. 6], starting at 4:00 PM, there will be restrictions on access to certain sites and services (WhatsApp, etc.). The estimated recovery time is 4:00 PM Moscow time on [Dec. 7]," local ISP Ellko shared with customers, according to local reports.

The Russian government is doubling down on these efforts, with the digital development ministry planning to allocate nearly 60 billion roubles ($660 million) over the next five years to enhance its web traffic censorship system. This system, known as TSPU, employs domestically developed traffic management tools that are created, distributed, and controlled by Roskomnadzor, the state communications regulator.

According to researchers at Censored Planet, a project tracking global online censorship, the TSPU represents a sophisticated approach to internet control. The system allows Russian authorities to inspect and filter internet traffic, potentially blocking access to specific websites and services while maintaining access to approved domestic resources.

Internet censorship grows

Russia's move comes amid a broader global trend of increasing internet restrictions, even in traditionally free societies. In the United States, ongoing efforts to ban TikTok—currently the world's largest social media platform—highlight growing concerns about data sovereignty and national security. Other nations, including Hungary, Turkey, Israel and Venezuela, have also implemented various forms of internet censorship and content control.

And other countries have started to use digital censorship for law enforcement. A recent example of this trend happened recently in Brazil, where authorities implemented measures to restrict access to X (formerly known as Twitter) after Elon Musk refused to comply with local laws.

During this incident, experts noted that the government could potentially track interactions and identify when Brazilian accounts posted on the platform. Additionally, Brazilian authorities could work with internet service providers, or ISPs, to detect and potentially block traffic to VPN servers.

Russia's system appears to be more comprehensive than previous attempts at Internet control. The TSPU infrastructure allows for deep packet inspection and traffic rerouting, making it increasingly difficult for citizens to access blocked content, even with tools traditionally used to bypass censorship.

Other techniques used by the Russian government include blocking local websites that use an encryption feature from Cloudflare, rerouting traffic through government-controlled infrastructure, targeting encryption services and traffic to VPNs, among other tactics.

While not explicitly illegal, VPN use is heavily restricted in Russia. In 2017, the country banned VPN providers that weren't government-approved. These approved VPNs were required to log user data and provide it to the government upon request.

Russia's pursuit of internet isolation is fundamentally deeper than many other countries due to its focus on developing a domestic DNS and removing Western hardware and software. The country would follow a similar approach to that of China and North Korea, in which governments have major control over internet traffic.

However, completely isolating the Russian internet remains technically challenging due to its complex infrastructure and reliance on global networks. The idea has been floating around for a while, and experts are not convinced that it would be easy to implement.

“China connected to the internet very late, very warily, and with an enormous domestic population that is, by policy, culturally pretty similar,” Andrew Sullivan, president of the Internet Society told The Record in 2023. “It seems likely that the conditions do not exist in Russia to replicate China's path. That doesn't mean that Russia won't try. But the path is likely to result in greater resistance in a population that is having something taken away, than what emerged in a population that never had the internet in the first place.”

Edited by Andrew Hayward