- Head of Russia’s Human Rights Council admits banning VPNs is ‘impossible’
- Trying to block all VPNs would disrupt businesses and banks
- The official still condemned citizens who use VPN to access blocked media
A Kremlin official publicly admitted that completely blocking virtual private networks (VPNs) in Russia is “simply impossible” and admitted that doing so could have a catastrophic impact on the country’s digital infrastructure.
The surprising admission comes from Valery Fadeev, head of Russia’s Presidential Human Rights Council, an advisory body that consults the Kremlin on civil liberties.
Speaking to the Russian business news outlet RBC, Fadeev noted that while the government disapproves of citizens using the best vpn To circumvent state censorship, technically eradicating them is going too far.
The reality is that the modern digital economy relies heavily on the cybersecurity protections and remote access that VPNs provide. Blocking them completely would not only prevent citizens from reading independent news. It would also disrupt critical operations for financial institutions and the technology sector.
“I really don’t understand how to regulate VPNs, because it quickly became clear to everyone that this is an extremely complex system and that banning or disabling VPNs is simply impossible,” Fadeev told RBC, according to an English translation published by an independent Russian media outlet. jellyfish.
“If you try to shut down everything, the entire vast Internet system could just break down. That’s obvious.”
The economic cost of an Internet outage
Fadeev noted that this technical reality is now “clear to everyone, although specialists understood it a long time ago.” He warned that a blanket VPN shutdown would severely hit businesses, banks and “programmers who download code.”
However, Fadeev remains highly critical of people who use privacy tools to evade Internet censorship. He told RBC that he has “never said that VPNs should be shut down,” but criticized “certain Russian citizens” who use circumvention tools to access independent reporting and blocked TV channels within the country.
“It is worth remembering that some of these media work for the enemy, they are not an alternative source,” Fadeev said. “Some of them have been designated as foreign agents, others as undesirable organizations.”
“What we found there is not alternative information but enemy propaganda. It is not a legal question, it is not a question of some type of restriction, it is a question of civic conscience.”
A question of “civic conscience”
The Kremlin has waged an escalating war on Internet freedom, systematically blocking independent media and attempting to limit access to circumvention tools. Fadeev, who claims that he himself does not use a VPN, previously referred to the use of VPNs as “something unnatural,” arguing that citizens who use them are looking for “what the enemy says.”
While many (including Telegram CEO Pavel Durov) have criticized Russia’s attempts to restrict access to VPNs, Fadeev rejected accusations of undermining freedom of expression.
Specifically, he accused “part of the Russian intelligentsia” of equating Internet restrictions with attacks on freedom of expression, arguing that online censorship is necessary because Ukrainian forces “are attacking many Russian cities.”
Despite the intense crackdown on VPNs, several apps appear to continue to operate, with BlancVPN, AmneziaVPN and VPN Liberty among those that adapt and continue to operate in the country.
