Russia restricted foreign internet access in several regions this weekend to test its national infrastructure.
Residents of the affected regions were unable to access both foreign and local apps, including YouTube (one of the last Western social media platforms still available in Russia), Google, WhatsApp and Telegram – The Record reports this.
According to local reportsEven Virtual Private Network (VPN) apps have failed to help citizens bypass internet restrictions in what appears to be a new phase of online censorship for the country.
“This event is crucial in the possible evolution of online censorship in Russia, because it shows what is technically possible: a very limited internet experience where most ordinary things simply don’t work,” a technical expert from Russian digital rights group Roskomsvoboda told Ny Breaking .
ℹ️ Note: Statistics show the disruption and restoration of connectivity in Dagestan, #Russia, after what telecoms regulator Roskomnadzor has described as a test of its ability to disable access to the foreign internet in a specific region; incident duration ~24 hours pic.twitter.com/7iYtDcVtSGDecember 7, 2024
According to reportsThe Runet trials mainly affected residents of areas populated by ethnic minorities, such as Chechnya, Dagestan and Ingushetia.
Data from internet watchdog NetBlocks (see tweet above) confirmed that authorities restored internet connectivity in Dagestan late on Saturday, December 7, 2024, after a 24-hour blockage that ‘telecom regulator Roskomnadzor has described as a test of its ability to disable access to the internet ‘. the foreign Internet in a specific region,” experts said.
However, the latest incidents do not come as a total surprise. The Russian censorship body conducted similar tests in Julyin effect, to ensure the functionality of the ‘sovereign internet’ infrastructure when it was disconnected from the wider web.
In September, the Kremlin also shared its plans to invest more than half a billion dollars (almost 60 billion rubles) over the next five years in updating its internet blocking system, especially against VPN use.
A new phase of Russian censorship
Russian censorship is clearly becoming stricter and visitors and residents have fewer means to circumvent the restrictions.
While the best VPN apps have become a crucial resource for people in Russia who struggle to access international news and other blocked websites, the Kremlin has seen a doubling down on Russian VPN use in 2024.
For starters, a new law that came into effect in March criminalizes the spread of information about ways to bypass internet restrictions – including VPNs.
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VPNs encrypt users’ Internet connections and mask their real IP address location. The latter option is especially useful for Russians who want to use VPNs to bypass strict internet restrictions – exactly what the authorities are trying to prevent.
According to the latest data, almost 200 VPN services have been blocked in the country at the time of writing.
Between July and September alone, around 60 VPN apps quietly disappeared from the Russian Apple App Store, bringing the total of unavailable applications on the Big Tech giant’s official store to 98.
Roskomsvoboda confirmed to Ny Breaking that most VPN apps were not working during the lockdown, but some were. “That’s an arms race, with both censors and circumvention technology developers working to nullify each other’s efforts, and it’s been going on for more than a decade. So there is still hope,” the expert added.
The bad news for Russian Internet users doesn’t end there either.
Also Roskomnadzor on December 7 announced plans to limit this at least eight foreign web hosting providers for failing to meet the agency’s censorship requirements. These include Amazon Web Services (AWS), GoDaddy and HostGator.
This represents “a new phase in Russian online censorship,” noted one of Roskomsvoboda’s IT specialistsadding that “something similar has already happened on a small scale, but this is the biggest.”
Russian IT expert Ilya Vaitsman also expressed his concerns. Vaitsman is particularly concerned about a possible increase in VPN censorship across the country because, he explains, these platforms host a significant portion of these services.
He said: “Of course there are hundreds of other sites in the world, not so noticeable, where there are also VPN nodes, but in general the situation is deteriorating sharply.”