The president of the Safer Internet League, Ekaterina Mizulina, asserted that a complete blockade of VPN services is not feasible. The full response to the question about potential blocking strategies is available in the organization’s Telegram channel, Mizulina’s official communications make clear that any definitive answer requires a nuanced understanding of how these tools operate and evade simple bans.
According to Mizulina, proxies, anonymizers, and VPN services can be difficult to contain completely. Even with strong policy measures, a motivated individual can often assemble a personal proxy at home, and the existence of such setups means that total visibility and control are nearly impossible to guarantee. She emphasized that this is something a knowledgeable person could achieve with relative ease, underscoring the practical limits of enforcement in a highly interconnected digital landscape.
She also remarked that, from a technical and physical standpoint, it is not possible to shut down the operation of all the major VPN networks in Russia entirely. The current focus, she noted, centers on blocking large, popular resources rather than the entire ecosystem, acknowledging that large-scale disruption would alone be insufficient to stop all VPN activity.
Earlier in the year, Mizulina suggested that VPN services might face blocks starting on March 1, 2024, indicating a forward-looking policy stance that aimed to curb access to circumvention tools while the state prepared to implement new regulatory mechanisms. The timing referenced reflects ongoing discussions about how best to balance national cybersecurity with lawful internet use.
A statement from Alexander Khinshtein, the Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy, Information Technologies and Communications, echoed the aim of reducing the spread of VPN services within the country. He clarified that the objective is to safeguard the personal data of Russian citizens, even as he tempered expectations about a blanket ban on the use of such services, signaling a more targeted approach rather than an outright prohibition.
Roskomnadzor, the federal communications regulator, reported on February 5 that, beginning March 1, the government would enforce restrictions on services designed to bypass blocking. This move signals a shift toward curbing the distribution channels and tools that facilitate circumvention, while still allowing the broader internet ecosystem to operate under existing legal frameworks.
In related commentary, Senator Shakin has previously addressed the question of when all VPNs in the Russian Federation might be blocked, highlighting ongoing legislative and regulatory debates. His remarks contribute to the broader public conversation about how state controls intersect with digital privacy and access, and they reflect the evolving policy landscape that many observers are watching closely.