(BlockBar) Russia will be blocking nine major VPN service providers in a few weeks. They have software banned in the country because these nine VPNs have refused to comply with a new law put by the Roskomnadzo Russia’s telecommunications regulation agency, the Roskomnadzo. According to the new rule it is required to ten leading VPN companies to link their servers to government-operated IT systems.
To be noted, nine out of these ten VPN service providers refused to follow the new law because it would affect their services as privacy providers. Hence, VPNs will be blocked. The names of the VPNs which will stop working in Russia are ExpressVPN, Hola VPN, HideMyAss, IPVanish, NordVPN, TorGuard, VyprVPN, KeepSolid, and OpenVPN.
The only VPN which accepted the demands of the Roskomnadzor is Kaspersky and will connect its servers to the IT systems operated by the government. According to Alexander Zharov, the head of the Roskomnadzor, the new regulation requires VPN companies to comply with the law or be banned. Zharov further said that the ten VPN companies on the list are not the only ones available to the citizens. So, it would not be a tragedy as people would have other options.
NordVPN has given its reasons to refuse to abide by the new regulations. According to NordVPN, it provides online privacy, online security, and allows people to surf the internet freely. Hence, while complying with the regulatory agency’s request it would be impossible for it to continue operating its products. To be noted, this development will affect NordVPN’s business in Russia.
It is worth paying attention that NordVPN has already shut down its servers in Russia on April 1. According to the service provider, it feels it is no longer safe to connect to NordVPN servers in the country. Secondly, some users will have to adjust their configuration to continue using the VPN as options to connect to Russia through the app have been removed. Even though other VPNs have not overtly shared but their reasons also are likely similar to that of NordVPN. Now, all these nine VPNs will be stopping working in Russia in coming few weeks.
