Russian courts have begun applying amendments passed in 2025 that treat the use of VPN services as an aggravating circumstance in criminal cases, the independent Russian media outlet Verstka reports. Journalists identified the first two such cases.
On December 19, 2025, a court in Novomoskovsk, in the Tula Region, sentenced a local resident to one year and eight months in prison on charges of illegally acquiring drugs in large quantities.
The court noted that the defendant had used a “software and hardware tool for accessing information resources to which access is restricted” to find the drug online, and treated that use as an aggravating circumstance. The defendant pleaded guilty.
The second case was heard in February by a court in Ukhta, in the Komi Republic, Verstka reports. A local resident received a three-year suspended sentence on the same drug charge. The court again treated the use of a circumvention service as an aggravating circumstance — the defendant had used it to access the site where he bought the drug.
From the fragment of one of the verdicts that Verstka published, it is unclear whether the tool in question was a VPN, as the outlet suggested, or another method of bypassing restrictions, such as the Tor browser. The court refers to a “software and hardware tool,” a category that Russian authorities include VPN services within.
Russian authorities added VPN use to the list of aggravating circumstances in criminal cases in July 2025. The amendment took effect on September 1 of that year.
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