They Banned VPNs (but it isn’t bad news!)

Added: 2026-05-08

[00:00:00]So, I have a pretty interesting video for you guys today, and this is one that I'm actually really excited to cover.

[00:00:05]Detect, block, evade. How to survive Russia's VPN crackdown. Now, we've been talking about VPN bans coming to the UK for the longest time, and so far the legislation's got just to the point of being passed, and then it's kind of been paused. And we all kind of think that it still might happen. There's still a lot of possibilities around VPN bans in the UK, or at least age regulation of VPNs in the UK. And we're going to have a clear answer from the government about this in May after they complete their full consultation that they're currently doing, where they talk about all of these topics and research them and find a reason to make up their own bias.

[00:00:39]Well, I wanted to share with you an example today of what's happening in Russia with their VPN crackdown and kind of give you a good reason to not worry.

[00:00:47]Detect, block, evade. How to survive Russia's VPN crackdown. Last week, Russia's Minister of Digital Development, Maxat Shadayev, instructed over 20 Russian online service providers on how to detect and block VPN connections. Failing to do so could lead to the loss of their IT accreditation.

[00:01:05]Now, in Russia at the moment, if you're an internet service provider, so as an example in the UK that would be like BT, EE, Vodafone, Three, all of those things. If you're an internet service provider in Russia, you have to have a government accreditation which allows you to be a service provider in that country. Now, Russia over the past couple of years, well especially since the war in Ukraine broke out, they've basically tried to control the access to information for the people. So, they've tried to ban VPNs through all reasonable methods. App store bans, just banning services altogether and trying to pull them. But, the nature of VPNs makes them hard to ban. Because what you're doing when using a VPN is basically turning the VPN on, and then your device for all intents and purposes isn't accessing the internet from that country. So, you can't have a nationwide ban in Russia with someone who's got a VPN on. Because from an internet perspective, they're not in Russia anymore. The newly enforced measures are part of the Kremlin's plan to reduce VPN usage for new blocking obligations for companies, alongside fines and fees for people caught using a VPN or similar circumvention tools. But, the thing is is when using a VPN, obviously you have an IP address. Now, what Russia's doing is they're going to their internet service providers and saying to them, "Hey, if you detect any traffic from someone using a VPN, block that internet access." Now, what this actually means is, for example, on your phone when you access the internet, you'll have an IP address. But, when you turn your VPN on, your IP address to the website or to the internet service provider appears to be different. Now, a lot of VPN providers, they'll buy, I don't know, 100 or 50 different IP addresses, and they'll run all of their traffic through those IP addresses. So, internet service providers can recognize patterns. They can recognize when loads of people are accessing the internet through one IP address, and they can block connection from that IP address, which would for all intents and purposes stop the usage of VPNs. But, there's one big problem with this. Many VPN providers, including my sponsor, Private Internet Access at the link down below, 4 months free, 86% off, you know what to do. They don't have just static IP addresses. They don't just buy a load of IP addresses and use those forever. They are constantly adding new ones and removing the old ones and cycling through different IP addresses that they own and operate. So, yes, for 10 or 15 minutes, the internet service provider may block access from VPN connections. But, by just changing what country you're connecting to the VPN with through the application, you're changing your IP address again to potentially a new IP address that the VPN provider has just added, and you'll probably have a good, I don't know, couple of days to a week of using the internet before the internet service providers manage to realize that actually, oh, that is a VPN. Now, at the moment, a lot of VPN providers aren't dominating with, you know, thousands and thousands of different IP addresses or millions of IP addresses, because they have no need to.

[00:03:54]Because at the moment, Russia is the only country that's doing this flat-out IP ban for people using VPN. But, if the UK government decides to go down the same method by telling websites or internet service providers to ban VPN connections, these providers are probably going to increase their monthly plans by, I don't know, a dollar or two a month, and then be in a position where they can just obtain more IP addresses.

[00:04:15]To basically mean that it's wasting the government's time, wasting the internet service providers' time, and more importantly, doesn't [ __ ] work at all. But, also VPN companies are getting smarter. They're finding ways to disguise the traffic. And there's different traffic types, things like WireGuard and everything, but we're not going to go that deep into it. But, basically, the VPN companies are finding different ways to actually circumvent this to preserve your privacy. So, is this VPN ban working at all in Russia at the moment? Well, it's making it marginally more difficult. People are having to turn off their VPNs and change their countries every now and again to access the internet. But, other than that, it hasn't really worked. And Russia is the most extreme example that I think I've seen in recent times. When it comes to the people accessing the internet for the rest of the world that don't have such a strict regulations, like the UK will never be that strict, at least at least I hope not. But, there will always be ways around it. And this is why all of this regulation and legislation around VPN usage is pointless. So, yeah, that's why I've kind of shifted my tone a little bit when it comes to VPNs, because at first, the idea of them banning VPNs seemed kind of scary, or asking people to verify their age to use VPNs seemed scary. But, as we've discussed in previous videos and obviously in today's video, there is only so much the government can do. And I think they've realized that, which is why they've slowed down with pushing forward this legislation at the moment. Anyway, thank you for watching today's video. If you did enjoy, check out Private Internet Access VPN at the link down below, and I shall see you all in the next one.