Study: Russians treat VPNs as an essential utility and build community networks to circumvent censorship

The study, based on focus groups with ordinary users, civic activists and the head of user support at Amnezia VPN, found that recent laws restricting internet freedoms and intensified crackdowns that disrupted dozens of circumvention tools have made VPN costs as routine as mobile internet bills or electricity and gas.

To counter frequent outages and blockages, users are creating small and large support networks, sharing VPN access keys with relatives and friends. Some have formed cooperatives of dozens of people whose subscription fees cover server costs.

Manzay Banzaev, founder of Amnezia VPN, told TechRadar that self-hosters widely use such solutions with its free open-source app. "While using the application is becoming more difficult due to the specific challenges of operating in a region with a high level of attacks on VPN services, these users continue to make effective use of it, establishing a connection with the outside world not only for themselves but also for their loved ones," he said.

The study highlighted that users often run several VPNs at once and must switch when one stops working. It is increasingly hard for users to tell whether a block comes from the government, an outage, a VPN malfunction or general connection issues, leading to frustration and a sense of degradation of the digital environment.

Banzaev said the endless search for working tools, switching between them, downtime and waiting have become routine. He noted telecoms quality is worsening while prices have risen by up to 40 percent over the past couple of years, adding to the expenses of Russian families who want to use foreign messaging apps, social media and content platforms.

Despite the difficulties, focus group participants said blocking is perceived as "universally negative" and they are unwilling to give up circumvention. Only drastically tightened laws, such as prison sentences for using a VPN, or the complete lifting of blocks would reduce usage.

If Russian authorities believe increased blocking is effective, the study suggests they may instead be pushing users toward increasingly decentralized, community-run networks that are harder to disrupt.