Russian tourists in popular countries — Turkey, Egypt, Thailand, and Vietnam — are increasingly facing problems accessing familiar online services. Banking apps, "Gosuslugi," marketplaces, and even ticket-purchase websites are not opening.
According to the Association of Tour Operators of Russia, failures occur when connecting via local Wi-Fi or mobile networks. Some services display a message saying VPN is enabled when users try to log in, after which the connection simply drops.
Whereas previously the restrictions mainly affected government resources, they have now reached commercial services as well. Users complain that they cannot pay for bookings, access banking apps, or even arrange delivery of goods from Russia.
VPN services partially solve the problem, but only if it is possible to connect to a Russian IP address. Even then, this method works unstably.
Experts link the situation to the tightening of requirements for blocking VPN traffic. Since mid-April, Russian services have been advised to restrict access when there is suspicion of VPN use — serious sanctions are possible for violations.
In practice, this leads many platforms to play it safe and restrict almost all foreign traffic, since it is technically difficult to determine with certainty whether a VPN is being used.
So far, the problem is not massive in scale, but the number of complaints is growing. In CIS countries, there are practically no such restrictions, whereas disruptions are being recorded increasingly often in popular tourist destinations.
As a temporary solution, tourists are advised to use Russian SIM cards with roaming, although this increases costs.
At the same time, the authorities are discussing the creation of a separate service that would allow Russians abroad to retain access to "Gosuslugi" and other important resources.