On November 1, 2017, Law No. 276-FZ entered into force in Russia, requiring owners of VPN services and anonymizers to restrict access to websites from the list of prohibited resources. So it was not a question of a complete ban on VPNs, but a ban on the use of such services to bypass the imposed block. According to the law, Roskomandzor was forced to create a system of interaction with VPN providers. After receiving the official request, the service was given 30 days to connect to the government system and obtain a list of prohibited resources. He was then forced to restrict access to these sites. For refusal to cooperate, Roscommander can block the service itself. Immediately after the law went into effect, the then head of Roskomandzor, Alexey Zharov, said that allegedly 25-30 VPN services popular among Russians "expressed their willingness to comply with the law." However, the department did not send FSIS connection requests to anyone at the time—because it did not receive representations from law enforcement agencies. The break lasted almost a year and a half. Only on March 28, 2019 did Roscommander send messages to the first ten services; They were given 30 working days to do it. Of the top ten operators, only Kaspersky's local Secure Connection service met Roscommander's requirement. Other international companies have publicly refused to comply with Russian legislation and have shut down their Russian servers. After realizing the ineffectiveness of the registration approach and voluntary cooperation, the regulator moved from administrative requirements to blocking protocols by force. After TSPU was introduced as part of the "Sovereign Ront" law, Roscommander began to specifically block not only IP addresses, but the VPN traffic itself (OpenVPN, WireGuard, ShadowSocks protocols). Then the bans were increased in a cascade: in 2024 they banned the distribution of information about ways to bypass blocking, in 2025 - advertising on VPN with fines of up to ₽500 thousand for legal entities, and until January 2026 they limited access to 439 VPN services.

On November 1, 2017, Law No. 276-FZ entered into force in Russia, requiring owners of VPN services and anonymizers to restrict access to websites from the list of prohibited resources. So it was not a question of a complete ban on VPNs, but a ban on the use of such services to bypass the imposed block. According to the law, Roskomandzor was forced to create a system of interaction with VPN providers. After receiving the official request, the service was given 30 days to connect to the government system and obtain a list of prohibited resources. He was then forced to restrict access to these sites. For refusal to cooperate, Roscommander can block the service itself. Immediately after the law went into effect, the then head of Roskomandzor, Alexey Zharov, said that allegedly 25-30 VPN services popular among Russians "expressed their willingness to comply with the law." However, the department did not send FSIS connection requests to anyone at the time—because it did not receive representations from law enforcement agencies. The break lasted almost a year and a half. Only on March 28, 2019 did Roscommander send messages to the first ten services; They were given 30 working days to do it. Of the top ten operators, only Kaspersky's local Secure Connection service met Roscommander's requirement. Other international companies have publicly refused to comply with Russian legislation and have shut down their Russian servers. After realizing the ineffectiveness of the registration approach and voluntary cooperation, the regulator moved from administrative requirements to blocking protocols by force. After TSPU was introduced as part of the "Sovereign Ront" law, Roscommander began to specifically block not only IP addresses, but the VPN traffic itself (OpenVPN, WireGuard, ShadowSocks protocols). Then the bans were increased in a cascade: in 2024 they banned the distribution of information about ways to bypass blocking, in 2025 - advertising on VPN with fines of up to ₽500 thousand for legal entities, and until January 2026 they limited access to 439 VPN services.