Russia Plans to Kill 92% of VPN Access by 2030, With Billions Already Allocated

Key Takeaways

• Russia's media regulator Roskomnadzor has set a formal target to block 92% of all VPN apps in the country by 2030.
• The plan is already funded: federal budget laws have allocated roughly 20 billion rubles per year starting in 2025 to build the underlying censorship infrastructure.
• Since April 15, 2026, major Russian platforms, including Gosuslugi, Sberbank, Ozon, and Yandex services, have been required to actively block users with VPN enabled.
• A proposed "foreign traffic tax" would charge mobile users 150 rubles per gigabyte beyond a 15GB monthly limit, hitting the international routes VPNs rely on.
• Using a VPN remains technically legal in Russia, but the state's toolkit for making it painful, expensive, and risky is growing fast.

A 92% Target and the Billions Behind It

There is something almost clarifying about the Russian government putting a number on its ambitions in this story. Not a vague commitment to "reduce VPN usage," but a specific figure: 92%. By 2030, Roskomnadzor wants 92% of all VPN apps operating in Russia to be blocked. This marks a significant escalation in how openly the Kremlin is willing to talk about what it is building.

The infrastructure behind the target is called ASBI, the Automated System for Supplying Security, operating through hardware nodes called TSPUs installed directly inside internet service providers. These devices inspect data packets in real time, blocking VPN traffic based on protocol signatures. Federal budget laws have set aside roughly 20 billion rubles per year starting in 2025 to run and expand this system, aligning with a September 2024 estimate of 60 billion rubles over five years, roughly $650 million.

Kolomychenko also flagged that the government has not defined what "92% effectiveness" actually means: the metric could refer to apps removed from stores, traffic volume blocked, or the share of users who can no longer connect at all.

The Crackdown That's Already Here

The 2030 plan is the long game, but the squeeze on ordinary Russians is already well underway. On April 15, 2026, a Digital Development Ministry deadline came into force, requiring over 20 major Russian platforms to block access for any user with a VPN enabled or lose their place on government white-lists and their IT accreditation. Gosuslugi, Sberbank, Ozon, Wildberries, Aviasales, and the full suite of Yandex services all complied.

Telegram was fully blocked as part of this same wave, and mobile internet was shut down across all four major carriers in Moscow starting in early March with no clear end date. The architecture for a fully controllable internet is not hypothetical.

The Ministry's justification is worth examining. According to Interfax, it stated that blocking VPN-enabled users "is being done to protect the data you enter on platforms," adding that "most VPNs do not protect the privacy and personal data of users." The government framing VPN blocking as user safety, while simultaneously ordering platforms to detect and cut off those same users, deserves to be called what it is.

From April 1, Russia's big four carriers also blocked customers from topping up Apple ID balances via mobile accounts, targeting App Store VPN purchases. Over 400 VPN services have been formally banned, more than 1,000 restricted, and VPN use is now recognized as an aggravating circumstance in Russian criminal proceedings, with the first documented cases already on record.

What's Still Coming

The "foreign traffic tax" has been delayed but confirmed: 150 rubles per gigabyte for any data exceeding a 15GB monthly limit on international routes, with the Ministry confirming it will not distinguish VPN traffic from ordinary foreign traffic. The State Duma is separately moving to ban Russian hosting providers from supplying computing capacity to VPN services entirely.

What Russia is building is not a collection of individual restrictions but a layered system: technical blocking at the network level, financial cost at the data level, legal risk at the criminal level, and social stigma at the school level.

The 92% target is the most honest thing Russia's government has said about its internet policy in years. No terrorism pretext, no child protection framing. Just a number, a deadline, and a budget line.

And yet the Ministry's simultaneous claim that this "protects user data" should not pass without scrutiny. The same government ordering platforms to detect and block VPN users is the one that compels those platforms to hand over user data on request. "Protection" here means protection from the government's own limited ability to see what you are doing. If the goal was user security, threatening platforms with the loss of IT accreditation would not be necessary.

Ultimately, how successful the Russian government will be in attaining their ambitious VPN-blocking goals remains to be seen. But if you live there and want to ensure that your connections remain secure and private no matter what the end result of this whole ordeal is, a residential VPN is your answer. So get Mysterium VPN with 82% off now and stay safe!