June turned out to be quite eventful. While we were fending off a massive attack on our infrastructure and recovering from it, the idea of a state-owned VPN was discussed in Russia, attempts were made to return the MAX messenger to app stores, and, of course, access to the network was being blocked.
Unfortunately, the June cyberattack on our services affected the performance of Amnezia Pulse, so this time we cannot share our original data. Next month, the digest will be released in its usual format.
This month, we have also released an international version of the digest with news from around the world — stay informed about global internet censorship
Attack on Amnezia VPN
In early June, our infrastructure suffered a massive, planned attack that combined DDoSDistributed Denial of Service — an attack in which the target resource is overloaded with requests and IP address blockages. For the first time, we recorded that Roskomnadzor (RKN) was not just blocking VPN servers, but also attacking their infrastructure.
The incident affected several critical resources at once and became the largest in the history of Amnezia VPN. We are still restoring the operation of certain aspects of the service.
Outages in the Operation of Foreign Services
On the very first day of June, Russian developers lost access to PyPI, the official repository of Python libraries. Roskomnadzor denies its involvement, but some users link the outage to blockages of the CDN provider Fastly — user traffic goes to pypi.org through its servers.
Previously, Russian authorities had repeatedly raised complaints against another CDN service — Cloudflare, due to its expansion of TLS ECHA tool that hides one of the parameters by which censors identify target resources, which helps bypass blockages.
The company was also added to the registry of ORIInformation dissemination organizers list, thereby obliging it to cooperate with the RKN and the FSB. Failure to comply with these obligations could become a formal pretext for blocking access to it.
The Fastly incident coincided with the publication of FSB investigations into foreign cyber espionage. In these reports, photographs of the company’s office are shown alongside Cloudflare — hinting at the participation of both organizations in actions against the Russian Federation
Also on June 3, the Dutch data center nLighten disconnected the power supply to MIRhosting’s equipment in the Netherlands and Germany without warning. This led to a complete blackout of servers used by Russian providers MCHost and VDSiina. MIRhosting has involved lawyers and is urgently searching for alternative sites.
The incident fit into a wave of similar outages: earlier, The Hosting, UFO Hosting, and a number of other small hosting providers faced sudden blockages in Europe. For users of self-hosted VPNs, this means an increased risk: the infrastructure can disappear without warning — and not due to the fault of the Russian authorities.
What Happened In The App Stores
MAX removed from foreign marketplaces
On June 4, the state-owned messenger MAX disappeared from the App Store — Apple explained the removal by sanctions requirements. At the same time, the Minister of Digital Development of the Russian Federation, Maksut Shadaev, stated that the company gave no official explanations.
Two days later, MAX’s web version had its SSL certificate, issued by GlobalSign, revoked — browsers began marking the site as unsafe. The service promptly switched to Let’s Encrypt, but the latter soon announced that it would stop issuing certificates to sanctioned companies and countries.
On June 9, MAX disappeared from Huawei’s AppGallery for users outside the Russian Federation.
Happ blocked in the Russian App Store
On June 24, at the request of the RKN, the second application of the Happ VPN service was removed from the Russian App Store. The developers created and sent a new one for review. Roskomnadzor pays special attention to Happ, adding any information about it to the registry of banned sites by the dozens — especially since its first removal from the App Store.
VK services disappeared from the App Store
Applications belonging to the VK holding — Dzen, VK Video, VK Messenger, VK Music, VK Dating, and later Odnoklassniki and the VKontakte social network itself — disappeared from the Russian region of the App Store on June 25.
The company stated that already installed versions will continue to work, and Android remains available, but iOS users may lose push notifications. The Ministry of Digital Development called Apple’s decision politically motivated and an instance of unfair competition, while the State Duma called it an argument in favor of accelerated construction of “our own internet”. The Kremlin demanded explanations, as deputies are talking about an “information war” and “digital terror”.
Telega ceased operations
Representatives of the unofficial Telegram client, which was promoted as an alternative to the messenger blocked in Russia, announced the closure of the project starting July 1. They explain this by the impossibility of fully localizing the application and bringing it into compliance with all the requirements of Russian Federation legislation, as well as external restrictions, including removal from the App Store.
In April, independent researchers discovered that Telega could track its users’ activity and even decrypt traffic.
New Methods of Blocking and Censorship
Legal Level
In June, the State Duma adopted a package of amendments expanding the list of internet bans. Initially, they were presented as measures to fight fraud under the “Antifraud 2.0” law, but in practice:
- Fines were introduced for authorization via Gmail and foreign services — Russian platforms can only use approved methods of authorization. These include a phone number, a “Gosuslugi” account, the Unified Biometric System, and some Russian platforms. For using Google Accounts, Apple ID, and their equivalents — a fine of up to 700,000 ₽ for legal entities. Avito is already blocking authorization with Google.
- Added criminal liability for telecom operators for disclosing information about the operation of SORMSystem for Operational-Investigative Activities — hardware complexes that give law enforcement access to user traffic and are mandatory for all providers.
- Prohibited hosting providers from servicing VPN services — legislatively establishing a norm that previously existed de facto. Providers are obliged to check against the list of violators from the RKN and deny them services.
- Announced the creation of a state database of IMEIs for all mobile devices — each imported gadget will receive a “passport number” and a link to a SIM card. Entering data into the database is entrusted to operators and “authorized state bodies”.
Other Initiatives
- Creation of GovVPN — at a closed meeting of the RKN with representatives of IT companies, the agency proposed introducing a unified state VPN for developers. The agency believes that such a tool will ensure uninterrupted work with foreign repos. According to Roskomnadzor’s plan, GovVPN will hide from Western filters by relying on the “most advanced DPIDeep packet inspection system in the world.”
- Purchase of equipment worth 1.3 billion ₽ to fight VPN services — the company DCTO (ДЦОА), owned by Rostelecom and responsible for the systems of the “sovereign internet” and TMCTsTechnical Means of Countering Threats, announced the purchase of additional servers. According to Kommersant, Roskomnadzor lacks computing resources to fully block target resources.
Mobile Internet Blockages Amid Drone and Missile Threats
- Volgograd Oblast — the UAV regime was introduced three times: on June 10, 11, and 19. Each time, the internet fell under restrictions.
- Sverdlovsk, Tyumen Oblasts, and Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug — a missile threat regime was announced on June 10.
- Penza Oblast — June 12, 19, and 20.
- Regions of the North Caucasus (Stavropol Krai, North Ossetia, Kabardino-Balkaria) — June 16, the regime was active from night until about 8–9 AM Moscow time.
- Moscow and Moscow Oblast — June 18.
- Pskov Oblast — June 19.
- Penza, Chelyabinsk, Sverdlovsk Oblasts, and Perm Krai — June 20.
Notably, St. Petersburg’s universities’ applicants are being officially urged to submit their documents in advance — summer blockages may affect the availability of resources at educational institutions.
June Trends
For several months now, we have been observing that Russian authorities moving from situational blockages to building a systemic infrastructure of control. Laws on authorization, SORM, IMEI databases, banning hosting providers from working with VPNs, GovVPN for a limited circle of developers, equipment purchases worth billions of rubles — all these are parts of a single construction.
We monitor the development of internet censorship and the state of the network in Russia. Subscribe to our X (Twitter) to receive timely updates.
We rely on anonymized data about user connections. Connect to Amnezia Free or Amnezia Premium to make the next digest as accurate as possible.
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