Russia is shutting down many more VPNs

Russia has forced Google to block more than 36,000 URLs related to VPN services since the start of the military invasion of Ukraine. This information has been known from the recent research sources of Surfshark.

In the first week of the aggression, the number of applications for blocking VPN-related URLs was a little over 7 percent. Applications for blocking URLs are subject to Section 276-FZ of Russian federal law. Which is commonly known as VPN law. However, the situation in Ukraine has been deteriorating since the second week of the invasion. Especially when the Russian government began shutting down Western social media, including Facebook and Twitter. At that time, the request to close the URL increased to 55 percent.

Hundreds of global media outlets, such as the BBC, Deutsche Welle, and Ukraine Pravda, shut down domains to prevent residents of the country from using VPNs services and accessing URLs. Since the start of the invasion on February 24, Ukraine Pravda has been releasing the latest information on Ukraine. Soon after the invasion of Ukraine, Western governments and businesses imposed restrictions on the import and export of goods to Russia.

Besides, the people of the country have taken steps to stop using technology products. Since then, the use of VPNs has increased among Russians. According to Surfshark’s internal documents, sales of VPN service providers increased by 3,000 percent in the post-invasion period compared to the time before Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine.

Gabriel Rekaiti, head of public relations at Surfshark, said the rise in VPN downloads was an indication of the Russian people’s efforts to avoid government sanctions and surveillance. The number of websites shut down every day in Russia is increasing. That’s why the VPN service is one of the means by which the Russians can access neutral information and use unobtrusive online platforms.

• Bitcoin: How Kazakhstan has become one of the world’s leading cryptocurrency mining
• Mobile internet spending will increase in the new year
• Google has increased security in online payments
• All the necessary shortcuts of the computer that everyone should know…