Moscow plans prohibitive costs for foreign internet traffic and new licensing obligations to stifle VPN usage.
The Russian government is finalizing a plan to make VPN usage economically unsustainable for its population. According to reports from Ukrainian foreign intelligence services, authorities want to introduce a fee of approximately $2 per gigabyte of international internet traffic on mobile connections. Since VPNs route traffic through foreign servers, nearly all VPN activity would be automatically classified as international, triggering the higher tariff. Mobile network operators have requested that the introduction of these charges be postponed until at least September 1.
The plan also targets smaller internet providers. Licensing costs to operate would increase dramatically – from the current fee of approximately $134, rising to around $66,000 for a basic license and over $1.3 million for a general one. The number of license categories would be reduced from 17 to just three. Ukrainian intelligence analysts estimate that over 90% of the 4,200 operators currently active in the country would not survive these requirements, leading to market consolidation in the hands of a few large government-linked providers.
In parallel, authorities want to accelerate the deployment of the SORM system, which grants the FSB – Russia’s federal security service – direct access to citizens’ online activity. Telegram was blocked on April 10, with authorities declaring it a tool for criminals, while promoting MAX, a government-approved messaging app, as an alternative. Russia’s 65 million Telegram users responded by turning to VPNs.
The scale of the phenomenon is significant. Alexei Kozlyuk, of the VPN Guild association, estimates that approximately 60 million Russians know how to use a VPN. A 2025 survey conducted by the Institute of Social Marketing found that 46% of respondents had used a VPN at least once. Some estimates place Russia in second place worldwide for VPN usage, with around 37.6% of internet users relying on one. The number of blocked websites in the country has reached 4.7 million, with platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and X having been blocked since 2022 following the invasion of Ukraine.
A further component of the plan involves direct monitoring through commercial apps. Research by the RKS Global group, which focuses on internet freedom, analyzed 30 popular Russian applications – including those from T-Bank, Sberbank, Yandex, and VKontakte – finding that 22 of them actively check whether the user is running a VPN or has one installed on their device. The data is stored on company servers, where security services can access it. “Any Android app released by Russian companies for the Russian market could now be used for spying,” RKS Global stated in its report.
Mazay Banzaev, founder of Amnezia, an open-source VPN company, highlighted the gravity of the situation to The Guardian: “It is one thing if Russian IT companies ‘catch’ users at the moment they visit a site with an active VPN. It is quite another when even a closed application continues to scan the phone for VPN usage.” The picture that emerges is one of a sweeping surveillance system that combines economic barriers, regulatory requirements, and technical monitoring to isolate Russian citizens from the global internet.
