Russia bans VyprVPN, Opera VPN services in the country. Russia’s telecommunications and media regulator Roskomnadzor (RKN) on Thursday introduced restrictions on the operation of these two VPN service providers describing them as threats.
“In accordance with the regulation on responding to threats to circumvent restrictions on access to child pornography, suicidal, pro-narcotic and other prohibited content, restrictions on the use of VPN services VyprVPN and Opera VPN will be introduced from June 17, 2021,” the state agency said in a statement.”
The watchdog said the services could be used to access illegal content, and only companies using them in “nonstop technological processes” would be able to continue doing so.
The two VPN services were classified as threats based on regulations introduced by the Russian Federation Government with Decree No. 127 on February 12.
After Roskomnadzor’s decision, Opera suspended support of VPN services in Russia, as Opera’s Senior Public Relations Manager Yulia Sindzelorts told.
“Opera endeavors to provide its Russian users with the excellent experience in using browsers. We decided to suspend support for VPN services in our browsers on the Russian territory in the form it was provided earlier,” Sindzelorts said.
On March 28, 2019, the Russian government required VPNs, anonymizers, and search engine operators to ensure that they block sites included on Roskomnadzor’s regularly updated register of banned sites through the Federal State Information System (FSIS).
To that effect, ten providers of virtual private network (VPN) servers — including NordVPN, Hide My Ass (HMA), Hola VPN, OpenVPN, VyprVPN, ExpressVPN, TorGuard, IPVanish, Kaspersky Secure Connection, and VPN Unlimited — were mandated to connect to the national blocklist.
Avast another vpn service provider suspended it’s vpn service in country.
Avast explained that the service will not be able to operate in Russia because of Roskomnadzor’s requirements to block sites included in the banned registry. The company stressed that this violates the right to freedom on the Internet and contradicts its principles:
“Unfortunately, this means that you won’t be able to renew your Avast SecureLine VPN subscription after it expires. But until then, you can use this program without complications. […] Please note that you will no longer be able to connect to servers located in Russia. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.”