Since the onset of all-out war on Ukraine in February 2022, Russian authorities have dropped a veil of censorship -- both overt and covert -- on news, dissent, and debate about the conflict, not to mention about President Vladimir Putin's leadership.

Russians have responded by embracing virtual private networks (VPNs), online tools that shield a user's location and allow them to read unfiltered news free of government interference.

That's made Russian regulators, not to mention the country's powerful spy agencies, unhappy. Officials have sought to restrict or even criminalize the use of VPNs.

Roskomnadzor, the agency that has spearheaded most of the Kremlin's efforts to clamp down on the Russian segment of the Internet, has reportedly come up with its own novel idea to tackle the problem: a government-run VPN.

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"The news is certainly puzzling. A state-backed VPN designed to circumvent restrictions that the state itself imposed seems counterintuitive," said Natalya Kovaleva, a researcher in the Russia and Eurasia program at Chatham House, a London think tank. "While I cannot speak to the technical feasibility of this proposal, I am rather skeptical of this idea."

Kovaleva isn't alone.

"It's just a joke: First you block everything, then you create a state VPN to bypass its blocking," Dmitry Kolezev, an exiled Russian journalist who was convicted in absentia for "discrediting the Russian military,"wrote in a post to Telegram."It's also probably very expensive! As they say, it's very good business."

'Helpless And Unfeasible'

News of the idea leaked to theonline publication The Bellnot long after Roskomnadzor pitched the idea at a June 8 meeting that reportedly included leaders from some of Russia's top tech companies.

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According to The Bell, Roskomnadzor Deputy Director Oleg Terlyakov said a state-run VPN would be recommended for IT developers and programmers "who really need it" to access resources outside Russia. The agency would also help troubleshoot any problems Russian IT companies might encounter with the state VPN, including accessing foreign online tools.

According to The Bell, the IT representatives -- which included major tech companies like Yandex, VK, InfoWatch, and Positive Technologies -- were less than enthusiastic, with some voicing concern about being cut off by the tech regulator.

There was no public confirmation of the report.

Roskomnadzor did not respond to a request for comment.

However, Igor Ashmanov, another prominent tech entrepreneur who is married to one of the country's most prominent IT executives, Natalya Kasperskaya, posted an opinion piece on his private blog in which he called the idea "helpless and technically unfeasible."

Ashmanov's blog post was later removed. He could not immediately be reached for comment.

'Sovereign Internet'

For the better part of two decades, Russian authorities have been trying to rein in the freewheeling Russian segment of the Internet using a combination of legislation, hardware, consumer coercion, and forced industry consolidation.

The goal was to create a "sovereign Internet" under watchful government eyes.

The effort gained new momentum after the onset of the Ukraine invasion as officials sought to limit awareness of things like war crimes, soaring casualty figures, or simply the Russian military's underwhelming performance.

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Ukraine has vastly expanded its drone capabilities in recent years, utilizing in part Russian cellular data networks to guide weapons to their targets.

To try and thwart the attacks, Russian authorities have resorted to turning off mobile Internet, initially in border regions but more recently in Moscow itself -- a hugely unpopular move for plugged-in, online Muscovites.

In recent months, Telegram, one of the country's most popular messaging apps, has been severely throttled, reportedly at the behest of the Federal Security Service, or FSB.

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The issue with Telegram -- an app built by Pavel Durov, a Russian tech developer who now lives in Europe -- is more acute for average Russians, Russia's tech industry, andeven the political elite at the Kremlin.

According to earlier reporting by The Bell, Putin had authorized the FSB's Second Directorate -- which is better known for tracking the late anti-corruption crusader Aleksei Navalny -- to both slow down the Internet and throttle Telegram.

In the powerful Presidential Administration, however, that caused problems. Ministers there are in charge of ensuring the country's tightly managed political system, and for them Telegram is an important tool.

Authorities have also sought to outright replace Telegram, backing a homegrown messaging app called Max and promoting it heavily.

By all accounts, Russians are embracing the app grudgingly.

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'You Cannot Just Turn Off Everything'

The impetus for the meeting between Roskomnadzor and industry leaders, according to The Bell, was about access to online platforms used by software developers around the world to create and manage code and programming projects, such as GitHub.

In line with Western sanctions imposed for Russia's invasion, Russian developers have been restricted in using those platforms and thus have embraced commercially available VPNs.

Throttling VPNs, or even moving to criminalize their use, could effectively kill Russia's IT industry. Being restricted to only using a state-run VPN might accomplish the same thing.

"Russia is still very much connected to the infrastructure of the global Internet, and you cannot just turn off everything," said Alena Epifanova, research fellow and expert on digital security at the German Council on Foreign Relations.

"The goal is to shut everything down but leave a few websites or messenger services to the people to communicate and read the news, or so-called news," she said.

But for developers and programmers, "it's about the nature of the Internet, it's about the code that doesn't know borders, it's about collaboration, it's about finding solutions to closed problems in software."

"Russia has to a certain extent created its own sovereign Internet," she said. "The state has decided: full censorship, full surveillance, full state control; they went for this fully. But then you can't have a national IT industry."

Russia Wants To Build a State-Run VPN. What Could Go Wrong?

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