A look at the rise of VPNs in Russia following its war in Ukraine; Apptopia: daily downloads of the top ten VPNs jumped from 15K before the war to 475K in March
A surge in virtual private network downloads is a challenge to Vladimir Putin and his version of the war Tweets: @youranonstory , @kenroth , @alfonslopeztena , and @kenroth Tweets: @youranonstory : VPNs have been downloaded in #Russia by the hundreds of thousands a day, a massive surge in demand that represents a direct challenge to Dictator and War Criminal Putin. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ... Kenneth Roth / @kenroth : “Daily downloads in Russia of the 10 most popular VPNs jumped from below 15,000 just before the war to as many as 475,000 in March. As of this week, downloads were continuing at a rate of nearly 300,000 a day.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ... https://twitter.com/... @alfonslopeztena : Millions of Russians are tearing holes in Putin's Digital Iron Curtain — Since war began, VPNs have been downloaded in Russia by the hundreds of thousands a day, granting access to blocked material. Putin's attempt to seal Russians off from the world fails https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ... Kenneth Roth / @kenroth : “Since the war began in February, VPNs have been downloaded in Russia by the hundreds of thousands a day — a massive surge in demand that represents a direct challenge to President Vladimir Putin's attempt to seal Russians off from the wider world.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...
Context & Ripple Effects
The Washington Post's piece captures the first months of what the coverage now calls the Digital Iron Curtain: after the invasion, Apptopia's download data showed ordinary Russians mass-adopting circumvention tools faster than the state could block them. What followed was an arms race on both sides — Moscow's own procurement documents later revealed 236 contracts worth $9.8M for VPN technology, showing the government buying the same tools it bans, while Washington quietly scaled up funding for nthLink, Psiphon, and Lantern by roughly 50% to serve the Russian user surge.
First-order effects
- Russian consumers immediately gained a working bypass of state blocking — sustained demand near 300,000 downloads a day meant censorship orders stopped translating into actual information isolation.
- VPN providers like Proton were thrust into direct conflict with the state, getting blocked in March 2022 and forcing small engineering teams into continuous cat-and-mouse with Russian censors.
Second-order effects
- Governments became market participants: US funding increases turned circumvention tools into geopolitically backed infrastructure, while Russia's $9.8M in VPN procurement blurred the line between censor and user.
- The blocking arms race pushed users toward workarounds beyond any single app — the pattern visible years later as Russians juggle multiple phones and rotating tools to stay connected.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, internet control becomes a contest of adaptation speed rather than static blocks — states ratchet restrictions, users rotate tools, and both sides industrialize (procurement budgets, state funding) around evasion itself.
- Circumvention tooling consolidates into a strategic category where a handful of funded providers and startups like Proton effectively set how open a closed internet stays.
The trend: State internet censorship is converging with a counter-industry of VPNs and circumvention tools, turning consumer privacy software into contested geopolitical infrastructure.