In Russia, a ban on VPN operation will come into force on March 1, 2024 - a number of media outlets wrote about this, referring to the words of the head of the Safe Internet League, Ekaterina Mizulina, during her speech in Yekaterinburg.
Mizulina herself, in a conversation with TASS, noted that her words were not entirely correctly interpreted. However, Roskomnadzor confirmed to the agency that the ban on promoting services circumventing blocking will come into force on March 1, 2024. The services themselves that circumvent blocking may also be prohibited - if they help to visit prohibited social networks or sites, then they are also illegal.
In accordance with the law, the operation of means of circumventing blocking of access to illegal content has been prohibited in Russia since February 2020. VPN services are among such means if their use does not restrict access to prohibited resources.
The situation was also commented on in the press service of the head of state. Based on the comment to journalists, there is nothing to worry about yet for bloggers, owners of small, medium and large businesses, and ordinary users who maintain their pages on the Web where it is now possible to publish content from Russia only through a VPN.
I can only say that there are no decisions on this matter now. This is what you need to proceed from.
VPN in Russia
The ban on the operation of means by which Russians use access to prohibited social networks and sites blocked for violations of Russian law has been in effect since February 2020. The operation of VPN services is also attributed to these means. But ordinary Russians and guests of the country have not yet been fined for their use.
Later in Russia, the need to introduce an analogue of the "Chinese firewall" was repeatedly discussed. No cardinal changes in legislation in this direction have been announced, however, content filtering and blocking of illegal services and prohibited content have clearly become stronger.
Not so long ago, Russia introduced a ban on promoting services to circumvent blocking of prohibited content - it has been in effect since July 2023. That is, if a site describes ways to circumvent blocking or makes a selection of VPN services for readers, it may be blocked itself and be outlawed. The decision to restrict access to such sites is made by Roskomnadzor independently, but the Prosecutor General's Office of the Russian Federation and judicial authorities also have this right.
In the fall of the same year, the Federation Council informed that an order comes into force on March 1, 2024, according to which VPN services providing access to illegal information will be blocked in all digital application stores. In particular, in Play Market and AppStore. Domestic application marketplaces should do the same.
It is most likely that a separate commission will clarify the reliability of VPN services regarding the threat to the security of the Internet - the Ministry of Digital Development spoke about working on such a commission and its rules of operation.
At the same time, the Deputy Chairman of the Council for the Development of the Digital Economy under the Federation Council, Senator Artem Sheikin, appealed to the owner and operator of the NashStore application market and to Roskomnadzor so that the store would reduce its range of applications and remove VPN applications from there. NashStore fulfilled the requirement, and Sheikin called on other domestic application stores to follow the example of NashStore.
And at the beginning of 2024, it became known that Russia will have its own new specialized information system that will block illegal content on the Web. According to sources in some media outlets, the Prosecutor General's Office, the Ministry of Digital Development and Roskomnadzor have already drawn up a bill that will allow the use of an "operational solution to block malicious sites using a specialized information system".
