- Russia’s media regulator has proposed a “state VPN” for IT specialists
- Roskomnadzor seeks to restore access to developer platforms inadvertently blocked by its own VPN crackdown
- Industry experts worry the tool could enable state surveillance and create a “privileged tier” of internet users
In a deeply ironic twist, Russia’s federal media regulator, Roskomnadzor, is planning to create a unified “state VPN” to help the country’s IT specialists bypass its own aggressive internet restrictions. The proposal aims to solve a problem of the government’s own making: its war on censorship-circumvention tools is now preventing developers from accessing essential foreign coding resources.
The plan was unveiled at a meeting on June 8 between Roskomnadzor’s deputy head, Oleg Terlyakov, and several IT companies. As first reported by the independent Russian news outlet The Bell, the meeting was called after a wave of complaints from developers who found themselves cut off from vital international platforms. These include the code-sharing site GitHub, repositories for the Python programming language, and the design tool Figma.
Instead of loosening its grip, the regulator’s proposed solution is a government-controlled VPN designed for “those who really need it.”
This move highlights a growing conflict within Russia: the state’s desire for a tightly controlled internet is clashing with the practical needs of its strategically important tech industry.
While a VPN is the right tool for the job, relying on one of the best VPN services, which prioritize user privacy through audited no-logs policies, is the standard for secure access, something a state-run tool is unlikely to offer.
A cure worse than the disease?
Details on this unified state VPN are still scarce, but the reaction from Russia’s IT community has been overwhelmingly negative.
Rather than welcoming the proposal, developers and industry experts have labeled the idea as “shady.” Their main fear is that a centralized, state-controlled VPN is the perfect tool for monitoring and surveillance.
Routing all traffic through a single, government-managed gateway would give Roskomnadzor unprecedented visibility into the work of every developer using it. One source who attended the meeting told reporters, “Cutting off Russians from international development tools will be even easier if everyone starts using the same VPN.”
There are also fears it could backfire internationally. “It could easily block access from abroad, and the idea itself seems shady,” another source from a Russian IT association told The Bell.
The proposal, commentators fear, also risks creating a two-tiered internet, where a “privileged caste with full access will emerge.”
Russia’s war on VPNs
This latest development is just one chapter in the Kremlin’s long-running battle against tools that offer Russians a window to the uncensored internet.
While Roskomnadzor has been blocking access to popular VPN services for years, blocking has now intensified as, since April, Russian providers have the obligation to detect and block active VPN connections.
More recently, the country’s censorship body was even accused of launching DDoS attacks against VPN providers in an effort to disrupt their services. Despite these aggressive measures, Russian officials have also had to concede that completely banning VPNs is “simply impossible.”
Faced with an unbreakable technology and an increasingly isolated digital economy, Roskomnadzor’s plan to build its own VPN seems less like a solution and more like a Trojan horse, offering access with one hand while potentially tightening surveillance with the other. For Russia’s developers, it’s a “fix” that few are likely to trust.
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