How Tor has been fighting Russia's efforts to block the anonymous browser since December 2021, including using Telegram to share volunteer-run Tor bridges
Russia has been trying to block the anonymous browser since December—with mixed results. — For years, the anonymity service Tor … Tweets: @heartlandorg , @wedf_forum , @oliverlinow , and @natynettle Tweets: @heartlandorg : .@natynettle of @accessnow: “#Russia is trying to eliminate any possible sources of truthful alternative information about the war & about what is going on in Russia internally.” https://www.wired.co.uk/... @wedf_forum : For years, @torproject has been the best way to increase #privacy online & dodge web #censorship by authoritarian governments, whose longevity it threatens. Russia's attempts to block Tor have recently escalated and much can be learned from Tor's fightback https://www.wired.com/... Oliver Linow / @oliverlinow : Tor is still working in Russia and the occupied territories of the Ukraine and helps to circumvent the russian censorship against western media outlets. https://twitter.com/... Natalia Krapiva / @natynettle : Spoke to @mattburgess1 from @WIRED on how Russia is trying all methods to block @torproject & eliminate truthful information about the war in Ukraine. But I remain hopeful they will not succeed! https://www.wired.co.uk/...
Context & Ripple Effects
Russia's attempt to block Tor since December 2021 is one front in a wider information-control campaign: leading internet providers had already moved to restrict access to Twitter and Facebook weeks after the invasion, and an investigation built on nearly 160K Roskomnadzor documents later mapped the censorship apparatus driving it. Tor itself was attacked before — a 2020 campaign hijacked exit relays for SSL-stripping attacks at its peak — so the current blocking effort extends pressure from network-level subversion to outright denial.
First-order effects
- Russian users lose direct access to the anonymous browser, but the block shows mixed results because Tor distributes volunteer-run bridges through Telegram, keeping connection paths alive inside the country.
Second-order effects
- Circumvention services face the same fight on parallel fronts — Geneva-based VPN startup Proton has been locked in a back-and-forth with Russian censors since it was blocked in March 2022 — while oligarch-linked contractors keep supplying the FSB with new surveillance tooling that raises the stakes of each round.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, censorship and circumvention harden into a permanent infrastructure arms race, with volunteer-run distribution channels like Telegram becoming critical chokepoints that both sides compete to control.
The trend: Authoritarian network blocking is converging with distributed, volunteer-run circumvention into a continuous cat-and-mouse over who controls access paths inside censored countries.