EFF: VPN Apps Are Vanishing From Russia's App Store Again, and They Are Worth Defending

Developers of VPN apps report that their products are once again being removed from Apple's App Store in Russia. Writing on the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) blog, Hayley Tsukayama calls this an unacceptable crackdown on a vital tool for protecting privacy and speech online.

What a VPN is for

A VPN lets people control their own online activity. A website visited through a VPN sees not the user's real location but that of the VPN server, or more precisely its IP address. The author likens it to sending a letter through a P.O. box: the recipient never learns where the sender actually lives. A VPN can also disguise where someone is accessing information from, making it possible to reach material their government has banned.

Going after tools that give people room to communicate and seek information freely is, in EFF's words, a common tactic from the totalitarian playbook.

Pressure on Apple

The latest demand, EFF notes, follows a series of steps by Russian authorities aimed at monitoring communication specifically on Apple devices. In 2024, The Moscow Times reported that Roskomnadzor, the state media watchdog, targeted VPN apps in the App Store. Before that, Russia had banned access to Western social media platforms and blacklisted opposition media sites. In 2025, according to Apple Insider, the country blocked FaceTime.

Bloomberg recently reported that the Russian government has added Apple and Microsoft to its state surveillance registry. According to Apple Insider, this gives Roskomnadzor access to local users' correspondence and puts both companies in a position where they must hand customer data to the security services on request.

As a result, EFF writes, state control is creeping deeper into Russians' devices while alternative tools grow scarcer. People are left with fewer and fewer ways to communicate online or find information that the state has not sanctioned.

Not just Russia

In EFF's view, Russia offers only the most extreme example of what happens when governments try to enforce speech rules by attacking privacy tools. It is far from alone. Several U.S. states, intent on making it harder to get around invasive age-verification laws, have floated banning VPNs, either for accessing certain content or, in some cases, outright. EFF has publicly and loudly criticized these proposals and calls going after VPNs a dangerous step toward censorship.

What those in power see as a "loophole" in their invasive laws is, EFF stresses, an expression of users' control over their own online lives. The organization says it will keep speaking out whenever governments try to take that control away.

Source: EFF Deeplinks