Since Russia ratcheted up control over the internet this year, some Russians are turning to solutions like using multiple phones and VPNs to evade restrictions
Context & Ripple Effects
Related coverage traces a multi-year escalation: VPN use surged after Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, while U.S. funding was increased for several VPN providers serving Russian users.
This year’s reported app throttling, intermittent connectivity cuts, and attempted VPN limits show the controls moving beyond blocking individual services toward tighter control of access itself; reports of a possible banking disruption underline the operational stakes.
First-order effects
- Russian users seeking access to restricted services face added friction and cost, including reliance on VPNs and multiple devices rather than a single stable connection.
- Russia’s internet-control measures put VPN providers and the platforms being throttled under more direct pressure as users try to route around restrictions.
Second-order effects
- Efforts to suppress circumvention tools can make the restrictions less predictable for legitimate online services, as the reported banking-outage episode suggests, raising the risk of collateral disruption.
- Demand for VPN and other circumvention services is likely to remain resilient as controls tighten, creating an ongoing enforcement-and-evasion cycle rather than a one-time block.
Third-order effects
- If this pattern persists, Russia’s internet environment will become more fragmented: access will increasingly depend on users’ technical workarounds and their ability to tolerate service instability.
- The recurring collateral effects could force a trade-off between more comprehensive control and the reliability of domestic digital services, though the balance will depend on how aggressively enforcement is implemented.
The trend: This is part of a broader shift from platform-specific censorship toward tighter control of the network layer, met by an expanding ecosystem of user-level circumvention tools.