Critical Russians may find it a lot harder to follow breaking news in the near future. The Kremlin is considering banning the use of a VPN. "Then you'll be pretty isolated as a critical Russian," he says. So says Russia expert Hubert Smeets to BNR.
You can think of your IP address as a kind of virtual mailing address. When you visit a Web site, it sees from your IP address exactly where you came from. This has several risks and disadvantages. For starters, there is a chance that you cannot visit the site to read, for example, the latest news from independent media. Because your IP address gives away your location, you are less anonymous on the Internet.
In addition, a static IP address - an IP address assigned by your provider - makes it possible to monitor all your activities on the Internet. An intelligence or other government agency can, in theory at least, secretly look over your shoulder and find out exactly what you are doing on the worldwide Web. In some countries, your browsing history can get you into quite a bit of trouble. Think of countries with authoritarian regimes where the government keeps a close eye on dissidents, human rights activists, lawyers or critical journalists.
To protect yourself from these dangers, you rely on a VPN. A Virtual Private Network or VPN is a tool that creates an encrypted connection between your computer and the Internet. Thanks to a VPN, all your data traffic is sent to a remote VPN server. This server then makes contact with the website you are trying to visit and sends anonymized data to your devices.
While the use of a VPN is not prohibited in Russia, it is severely restricted. Since 2012, the Kremlin has kept a list of websites that Russian citizens are not allowed to visit. On that list, we also find a number of VPN providers.
Currently, there are several reliable VPN providers that may be used in Russia, including NordVPN, Surfshark, Private Internet Access (PIA) and ExpressVPN. Many Russians use a VPN to hide their IP address, according to historian and Russia expert Hubert Smeets. "They can watch whatever they want with it," he told BNR.
However, a VPN connection is not cheap, Smeets stressed. Moreover, there are voices calling for banning the use of VPNs altogether. "The Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said earlier about this not wanting to ban it because he himself uses a VPN. It could well be conceivable that this will happen within the next few months. Then you are pretty isolated as a critical Russian," Smeets explained.
As we mentioned, using a VPN is not legally prohibited in Russia. However, we do see Roskomnadzor banning VPN providers from offering their services on Russian territory with some regularity. For example, in June 2021, Russia's telecom watchdog imposed a ban on Opera VPN and VyprVPN because these providers were classified as a "threat." This was because the providers offered access to websites with prohibited content, such as child pornography images and websites about suicide and drugs.
In the unlikely event that you are unable to use your VPN in Russia, there is another option to bypass Russian censorship: install the Tor web browser. This browser allows you - without a VPN connection - to surf the Internet anonymously. Finally, you can look into installing a free VPN to hide your location and Internet activities.
