August 2026
A study of the online behaviour of VPN users in Russia and their attitudes toward censorship
Since 2022, VPNs have been the main technology for circumventing censorship in Russia. Before 2015 they were used mainly by technical specialists and internet activists, but after the “permanent” blocking of RuTracker and other file-sharing sites, and later the Russian authorities’ attempts to block Telegram, anti-censorship tools began to spread more widely.
With the introduction of wartime censorship and sanctions-related restrictions in 2022, when almost all of the largest independent media and social platforms (Facebook, Instagram, X, TikTok) became unavailable or only partially accessible at once, Russia saw an explosive rise in the popularity of VPNs. By expert estimates, in 2024–2025 – as the Russian authorities began blocking YouTube and Discord and restricting the popular messengers WhatsApp and Telegram – the number of VPN users in Russia approached 36%, that is, one in three people in the country. In 2026 this growth continues.
In a short time, people in Russia who had previously enjoyed free access to the global internet found themselves cut off from the services they relied on for communication and content, and had to quickly learn to get around the restrictions. The VPN stopped being a niche solution for geeks and professionals and became a basic tool for people of different ages and walks of life, with varying levels of income and technical skill.
People set up VPNs using self-hosted solutions, buy subscriptions from providers, download free versions from app stores and bots, and share keys with family and friends. Paying for a VPN now adds to what households already spend on home and mobile internet and becomes a permanent line in the household budget. At the same time, because harsh blocking keeps knocking out one service after another, users are forced to keep several different solutions in reserve.
The constant search for ways around blocking does more than drive active downloading of VPN services: it also changes household economics and people’s online behaviour, and it creates new forms of cooperation aimed at countering censorship – even when the motive behind them is consumer-driven rather than political.
Experts from RKS Global and the Witness Research Centre team carried out a joint study of VPN users in Russia to understand how they choose a VPN, what difficulties they run into while using it, and how they view Russia’s blocking policy in general and their own cybersecurity in particular. The main focus was on how users adapt to internet censorship and how their experience changes as they use a VPN.
The study draws on three focus groups, an expert interview with the head of user support at Amnezia VPN, and participant observation.
From the focus group data we mapped a user journey covering the search for and choice of a circumvention service, the actual experience of using it and the difficulties that come with it, and the conditions under which users would be willing to give up a VPN (see the attached file for details).
According to the findings, people download free VPNs from the top of the AppStore/PlayMarket search results, but they choose a paid service on the recommendation of friends and family, or of organisations and bloggers they trust. Reviews in the AppStore/PlayMarket count for least.
For many users, paying for a VPN has come to count as one of the household’s necessary expenses, on a par with paying for internet. Being able to connect several devices to a single VPN account turns a subscription into shared infrastructure and raises the cost of switching services, so people try not to change provider without good reason.
Respondents confirm that they use several services in parallel, depending on which one is working well at any given moment. When a particular service degrades, users do not abandon the VPN as a technology; they simply redistribute across the available services.
People who already use a VPN often become nodes for spreading it: they recommend a service, share keys, add family members to their subscription, and install and configure a VPN for those who can’t manage on their own (mostly older relatives). Distinctive forms of cooperation take shape – for example, a technically competent person may set up and maintain a self-hosted service, connecting new users and their families (personal acquaintances only) for a joining fee that goes toward the cost of the server.
The focus group material shows that informants are not prepared to give up circumventing the blocks. They point to only two scenarios that might change their minds: a sharp tightening of the law (prison terms for using a VPN) or the lifting of the blocks altogether. Informants also mention cases of switching to unblocked services out of fatigue with access problems and a need to stay reachable (for work, for example).
Users in Russia feel the infrastructure is breaking down and degrading. It came up repeatedly in the focus groups that when something stops working, informants find it hard to tell whether the cause is blocking by the Russian authorities, blocking or outages on the service’s side, a fault in the VPN, or connection problems in general.
We were also interested in how users see the VPN in the context of their personal cybersecurity. A dedicated set of questions probed their awareness of cybersecurity, the protective tools they use, and how they perceive threats.
According to the data, VPN users in Russia do not see these services as a form of protection (some even see them as a potential threat, fearing data theft and the like). First and foremost, a VPN is for them a way to reach the services they are used to. On cybersecurity, most users profess indifference, yet they hold patchy theoretical knowledge – even to the point of running the MAX app in a virtual machine when they need to use it (see the attached file for details).
Users voice fears of state surveillance, which pushes them to sabotage the installation of the messaging app MAX being imposed on them, and other Russian apps.
There is a distinctive “fearfulness” among users, together with poor knowledge of the law, which breeds false impressions of the actual state of affairs. For example, with liability shifting from distributing banned information to consuming it (the law on liability for the deliberate search for extremist material and on treating the use of a VPN as an aggravating circumstance), the VPN returns to its original purpose – protecting the user from surveillance of their online activity by the provider and the state – yet users still fail to notice this shift.
People who use VPN in Russia have chosen (consciously or not) a path of resistance to censorship. Restrictions on access to information are perceived negatively by them, causing irritation, fatigue, and a sense of degradation of the digital environment.
The official state discourse, which explains the imposing of censorship as measures to protect children, counter extremism, or strengthen sovereignty, is not reproduced by informants either in criticism or in attempts to justify the blockings. This suggests that the average VPN user in Russia does not believe in the propaganda narratives.
The informants see the current policy as serving solely the interests of the state, which conflict with their own interests: free access to information and the preservation of privacy on the internet.
Experts highlight the paradoxical nature of the situation, in which the state’s attempts to gain control over the dissemination and consumption of information push people to unite in opposing censorship. People do not seek ways to circumvent restrictions individually; instead, they form numerous small and large networks of mutual assistance: they recommend working services to each other, use information from trusted opinion leaders, share VPN keys with family and friends, and create VPN cooperatives involving dozens of people.
Internet restrictions become a unique point of solidarity, highlight the commonality of people’s difficulties at the everyday level, and form a routine practice of disobedience. Thus, according to experts, the blockade policy in Russia, if not counterproductive, at least yields highly ambiguous results in society.