Russia's attempt to block VPNs is causing widespread banking outages

[Alfonso Maruccia]

What just happened? Russian authorities are working hard to tighten control over the internet. Roskomnadzor recently began blocking Telegram, but users continue to access the platform via VPNs. The Kremlin is now attempting to censor VPNs as well, and this onion-layered approach to censorship is disrupting some critical domestic online services.

According to Telegram CEO Pavel Durov, the Kremlin's increasing efforts to control and censor the global internet are causing widespread problems for Russian users. The Russian-born entrepreneur confirmed that Telegram is now banned in the country, yet more than 50 million Russians continue to use it daily via VPNs.

Moscow authorities have spent years attempting to control and block VPN platforms, Durov said. However, their latest efforts to restrict encrypted traffic and tunneling protocols have led to widespread failures in banking apps. Over the weekend, cash became the only reliable payment method across much of Russia.

– Pavel Durov (@durov) April 4, 2026

According to unnamed industry sources cited by Bloomberg, the crackdown on VPNs may have triggered significant connectivity issues for banking platforms. Roskomnadzor's filtering system was reportedly overloaded, causing reliability and network stability problems across the Russian internet.

Russia is attempting to push its citizens toward a domestic "super-app" called Max, designed to provide access to social media and mobile payment services – similar to how China's WeChat app, Weixin, operates. Beijing authorities have unrestricted access to all traffic on Weixin, and the Kremlin appears to be aiming for the same level of control with Max.

Russia's latest attempt to block Telegram has drawn criticism from soldiers, pro-Putin bloggers, and supporters of Russia's war against Ukraine. Despite Durov's personal troubles with the international justice system, Telegram continues to be widely used as a "support" platform on Ukraine's frontlines. Durov argued that restricting citizens' access is a fool's errand, destined to fail – whether in Iran or Russia.

Netizens are increasingly turning to virtual networks to circumvent state censorship, but VPNs come with their own risks. As a small group of Democratic representatives recently noted, using a VPN could expose US citizens to unrestricted government surveillance – an issue that would constitute a major violation of digital and civil rights in the US, Russia, Iran, or anywhere else.

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Russia's attempt to block VPNs is causing widespread banking outages

 

[Squid Surprise]

It becomes harder and harder to run a dictatorship as technology improves… will suck in the short term, but hopefully makes the world better in the long run.

 

[p51d007]

Ole Vlad is still trying to "put the band back together" (USSR).
They don't want their "subjects" to know ANYTHING that their government
doesn't tell them.

 

[abactuon]

There’s no need to return to the USSR; the state is defined by the people in power, not by a name or a fabricated ideology. The USSR “won” in the sense that the descendants of the criminals who founded it are now thriving - because there has been no change in the ruling elite.

Russia serves as a testing ground for various utopian and dystopian theories.
At some point in the future, something similar awaits all countries.

 

[Infernus]

If ExpressVPN works in China I'm sure it will still work in Russia. You think the devs at ExpressVPN are just going to sit and watch, yeah right, those are potential customers and they will be hard at work.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Westerners will laugh at Russia, but remember our own government shave tried this multiple times via failed attempts to ban VPNs at the legal level.

 

[Endymio]

Westerners will laugh at Russia, but remember our own government shave tried this multiple times via failed attempts to ban VPNs at the legal level.

Yes, and it's also odd that we see these stories continually about Russia -- but never a one about China, which banned private VPN usage long ago, and in fact still employs as many as two million people full-time to do nothing but censor the Internet.

 

[pnntmp]

It becomes harder and harder to run a dictatorship as technology improves… will suck in the short term, but hopefully makes the world better in the long run.

Pretty much everyone with a brain has fled Russia already. In this situation, if they manage to isolate themselves, it might actually get easier to run the dictatorship. Or maybe not, because apparently there are not enough competent people to complete even a relatively simple task. Most things not working most of the time has become the norm.

 

[toooooot]

Ole Vlad is still trying to "put the band back together" (USSR).
They don't want their "subjects" to know ANYTHING that their government
doesn't tell them.

There is a rumor that Israel traced Khamenei through street cameras or something, and that
made Putin sh*t his pants. I am certain he would keep the internet unblocked if it meant more approval.
But his life matters to him 100 times more than the approval of his citi... slaves.

 

[toooooot]

Westerners will laugh at Russia, but remember our own government shave tried this multiple times via failed attempts to ban VPNs at the legal level.

EU is banning social platforms for minors (which would be a good thing), but I am just waiting for them all to allow or create that one platform that is safe for kids, lol. Something that is perfectly tuned to sound everything their governments find important for young minds while protecting them from any dangerous thoughts that might lead them astray.

 

[Melkor Unlimited]

... protecting them from any dangerous thoughts

Any though may be dangerous.
Better to teach them to not think.

Government will do the big decisions.
A.I. the everyday ones.

 

[OortCloud]

Russia continues it's slide into full crackpot-dictatorship with all the bungling and corruption and misery for the population that comes with it. The fact that they have been trying to invade a tiny European country like Ukraine for over four years now speaks volumes for how low Putin has brought them. With all their mineral wealth and land they should be one of the big players on the world stage but instead they are a broken state with an arsenal of very sketchy nukes from a previous era and almost nothing positive to offer the rest of the world.

 

[Endymio]

The fact that they have been trying to invade a tiny European country like Ukraine for over four years now...

That "tiny country" of Ukraine has an army larger than the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Austria, Denmark, and Belgium all combined, and -- thanks to NATO -- a military budget larger than any other nation on Earth, save the US and China. Even before the war began, it had by far Europe's best air-defense system. And while most of its army is Ukranian, about 25% are foreign mercenaries, again bankrolled with western aid dollars.

It's a nice fiction to believe it's just Ukraine fighting Russia, but when a British-made cruise missile is transported in theater by US contractors, directed out of a NATO headquarters in Germany planning campaign logistics, then fed targeting data by a US spy satellite -- it's a NATO operation, no matter who finally presses the big red launch button.

 

[daffy duck]

How long before Agent Orange tries to ban vpn's?

 

[Endymio]

How long before Agent Orange tries to ban vpn's?

The closest the US came to that was when Joe Biden attempted to setup a Ministry of Truth, to prevent its people from hearing any news which deviated from the party line.