Russia’s media regulator is now allegedly DDoS‑attacking VPNs, not just blocking them

One of the largest VPN services, Amnezia VPN, has been nearly non-functional for several days following a large-scale DDoS attack on its infrastructure. According to the developers, the attack has made it impossible to switch between servers. This affected all Amnezia Free and Premium users. The dev

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Russia’s media regulator is now allegedly DDoS‑attacking VPNs, not just blocking them

One of the largest VPN services, Amnezia VPN, has been nearly non-functional for several days following a large-scale DDoS attack on its infrastructure. According to the developers, the attack has made it impossible to switch between servers. This affected all Amnezia Free and Premium users. The developers believe Roskomnadzor, Russia’s federal media regulator responsible for internet restrictions, is behind the attack. Here is what is known.

Amnezia VPN users have been experiencing connection problems since late May, the service’s developers said. Certain server locations became unavailable, and the app itself became unstable. The developers attributed the outages to “an unprecedented DDoS attack amid the targeted blocking of a large array of Amnezia VPN IP addresses.”

The service blamed Russia’s federal censor for the coordinated attack: “For the first time, we can state as fact that Roskomnadzor has begun not only blocking VPN servers but actively attacking our infrastructure.” The agency did not comment on the statement.

Amnezia VPN representatives first reported the attack on June 1, adding that some other VPN services were “experiencing availability problems” as well. The message did not specify which services.

The developers initially estimated that full restoration would take a few hours, but connection problems have persisted. The service said the attack had affected more resources than ever before and that recovery would likely take longer than usual.

On June 4, the developers said they were trying to “find the most effective way to restore stable operation of the services” and that “work is continuing around the clock.” The service promised Amnezia Premium users compensation for the days the VPN was not working.

Amnezia VPN had already experienced outages in mid-May, as had many other circumvention services. Disruptions with BlancVPN, another popular service, were also observed in late May and early June. On June 4, BlancVPN reported that a large portion of its service had been restored.

Amnezia, without disclosing details, attributed the connection problems to “mass blockings in connection with the actions of censors.” Around the same time, reports emerged that Russia had recorded an unprecedented number of complaints about the MTProto cryptographic protocol, which the Telegram team developed to circumvent blocks on the messenger.

Roskomnadzor is steadily refining its blocking tools, experts said, and VPN services must continually devise new workarounds. A BlancVPN representative told Meduza that there had been more blockings in 2026 than in 2025, and more in 2025 than in 2024, and that there is no reason to expect that trend to change.

At Meduza, we are committed to transparency about our use of artificial intelligence in the newsroom. The story you’re reading was written by one of our living, breathing journalists and translated from Russian using an AI model configured to follow our strict editorial standards. This translation process is the result of extensive testing and refinements to ensure our English-language coverage is timely and accurate. A Meduza editor reviews every draft before publication.

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