In the second half of March 2026, the Yandex Wordstat service recorded a sharp increase in the number of search queries related to VPN services. As the Telegram channel "Code Durov" verified, information about VPN was searched for almost 3 million times via "Yandex Search" in the week from March 16 to 22, 2026. For comparison: in the same period of 2025 (March 24–30), the number of queries was just over 900 thousand. The share of all queries also increased: from 0.04% a year ago to 0.12% in March 2026. Most requests come from Central Russia, Moscow, and the Moscow region. The data from Yandex Wordstat is confirmed by Google Trends statistics.
Growth of 3.3 Times in a Year
Thus, the number of search queries about VPN increased approximately 3.3 times compared to March 2025. Peak values are comparable to the level of spring 2022, note the authors of the Telegram channel "Networks and Signals". In absolute figures: from March 16 to 22, 2026 — 2,982,000 queries (rounded to 3 million), while a year earlier for the same week — 905,000.
The interest of Russians in VPN services traditionally increases with the strengthening of blockings or the appearance of information about restrictions on access to popular resources. However, no direct correlation with specific events is given in the presented data. Yandex Wordstat statistics record precisely search activity, not the fact of using a VPN.