Roskomnadzor recalled the ban on the popularization of VPN services from March 1 – Kommersant

Roskomnadzor reported TASSthat on March 1, a ban on the popularization of services for bypassing blocking, including VPN, will come into force. Moreover, such services, if they do not restrict access to prohibited resources, have been prohibited in Russia since February 2020. This is how Roskomnadzor responded to reports that VPN services will be blocked in the Russian Federation from March 1.

Earlier today, February 5, the head of the Safe Internet League, Ekaterina Mizulina, at a meeting with schoolchildren from Yekaterinburg school No. 1, when asked whether the information that all VPN services would be blocked in Russia from March 1 was true, answered in the affirmative.

“Yes… Most likely, this is so… But proxies, anonymizers, VPN services cannot be blocked completely… We, for example, in the organization also use this, because we have to watch content on sites that are blocked, because they also send (complaints.— “Ъ”… Of course, we are talking only about large services that provide such services to a large number of users,” said Ekaterina Mizulina (quoted from E1.ru).

The head of the Safe Internet League said that free VPN services “download information” from the devices on which they are installed. She called VPNs a “portal to hell.” Later in his Telegram channel Ekaterina Mizulina stated that the media, which, after her statement, reported that VPNs had been blocked in the Russian Federation since March 1, freely interpreted her words.

October 3, 2023 Senator Artem Sheikin reported, that Roskomnadzor plans to issue an order according to which, from March 1, 2024, VPN services in all application stores will be blocked if they provide access to blocked resources. At the same time, the head of the State Duma Information Policy Committee, Alexander Khinshtein, said that the department already has such a right. Roskomnadzor, commenting on Mr. Sheikin’s words, then statedwhich plans to independently block sites that contain information about methods and means of bypassing blocking in Russia.

Erdni Kagaltynov