Russia continues to tighten its grip on internet use within its borders by banning OpenVPN and WireGuard VPN platforms and protocols, according to reports. Across many message boards, users of Russian mobile internet operators such as Beeline, Megafon, MTS, Tele2, Tinkoff, and Yota have reported that OpenVPN and WireGuard no longer work.
The ban remains unofficial at this time and doesn’t appear to affect landline connections.
WireGuard is an open-source VPN protocol that utilizes cryptography and simple key exchange as a lean method of securing network traffic. WireGuard encapsulates traffic over UDP, performs key exchange, and packet transfer begins.
OpenVPN is also an open-source VPN protocol that implements encrypted point-to-point or site-to-site connections. It can support both client and server applications and is a popular cloud-hosted VPN service that can be deployed on any cloud service provider.
Russia has already banned IPSec, IKEv2, L2TP, and PPTP protocols since May 2022.
Using a VPN to terminate your connection inside of Russia still appears to work uninhibited, most likely due to maintaining foreign business operations.
Russian government officials part of the Rozkomnadzor agency claim that they do not intend to criminalize the use of a VPN. However, they have made sharing information about how to evade VPN blocks or obfuscate your network traffic illegal.
The recent actions, while not making VPN use illegal, certainly are enforcing a ban and tightening information to its citizens.
Russia has even gone as so far to have made an anti-VPN public information campaign to dissuade its citizens from using VPNs this year. One PSA ad claims that Russian citizens’ data can still be leaked via VPN to scammers and fraudsters. Another PSA ad claims that a restaurant visitor’s credit card information is already stolen because they used a VPN.
Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the Rozkomnadzor has taken aggressive steps to attempt to delist or bury VPN provider results in search engines.
The tightened grip on the Russian internet should come as no surprise to the West, as Russia has already extensively banned popular social media apps from government and military officials use on smartphones.
The Roskomnadzor announced the ban on foreign messaging apps including WhatsApp, Telegram, Discord, WeChat, and others back in March 2023.
