Apple quietly deletes nearly a hundred VPNs that allowed Russians to get around censorship

The U.S. multinational Apple has removed almost a hundred VPN applications in Russia, dozens more than the Kremlin’s censorship body officially reported. Virtual private networks (VPN) allow Russian citizens to bypass the government’s ban on accessing certain sites, in particular media outlets by Russian journalists in exile, Western newspapers, including EL PAÍS, and foreign social networks.

The U.S. company — whose phones are still sold in Russian stores despite the firm officially leaving the market due to the invasion of Ukraine — has removed a total of 98 VPNs, 60 of them in the last three months, according to the GreatFire project. “By unilaterally restricting access to these essential tools without transparency or due process, Apple is complicit in enabling government censorship,” Benjamin Ismail, director of the App Censorship Project at GreatFire, said in a statement.

In May, Apple announced that it had removed 12 apps in total from the App Store in 2023 at the Kremlin’s request, while the Russian federal service responsible for monitoring and blocking the internet in Russia — the omnipresent Roskomnadzor — reported that 25 VPNs had been removed by the company at its request. However, GreatFire’s investigation reveals that the multinational recently removed dozens more apps in several sweeping rounds, especially between July and August.

“The removals were concentrated on specific dates, suggesting coordinated actions by Apple — potentially exceeding Roskomnadzor’s requests — and not voluntary withdrawals by VPN developers,” Roskomsvoboda, a free internet platform in Russia that is a partner in the GreatFire project, said in a separate statement. The group says CyberGhost VPN and ExpressVPN were among the major apps that were secretly removed. Previously, other well-known VPNS such as Proton, Red Shield and NordVPN had been officially removed. According to Roskomsvoboda, only China surpasses Russia when it comes to restricting applications that allow users to get around government censorship.

Ismail notes that Apple App Censorship Project “has failed to explain why it deviated from its own standards and policies, which recognize ‘the critical importance of an open society in which information flows freely’ and state that ‘hand in hand with the privacy of our users is our commitment to freedom of information and expression.’”

Apple, Microsoft and Google remain in Russia

Software and hardware from major Western technology companies are still being sold in Russia, despite Moscow’s promises that they would be replaced by Russian products and the fact the firms themselves said they were leaving the market in solidarity with Ukraine. Everything is imported, or via the pirate market, and although subscriptions cannot be renewed within the country due to the blockade of the financial system, they can be renewed through accounts abroad.

The tech companies do not sell their services directly, but there are signs that they are operating in a gray area within Russia. Browsers continue to offer advertising tailored to users based on their geolocation and searches; and Google, for example, did not close access to the AdSense and BiqQuery advertising networks in Russia until August of this year. In fact, EL PAÍS has verified that new Gmail accounts could be created in Russia until just a few weeks ago: only now does it reject the use of a Russian phone as a means of validation.

Where the Kremlin censors one VPN, another one appears, although in Apple’s closed system it is more complicated. Russia is one of Apple’s biggest markets in the world, along with the United States. According to Globalstats, 26% of Russians use iPhones, and the sanctions have not hampered the country’s interest in the Californian company. Although Apple no longer sells its products in Russia, in response to the invasion of Ukraine, Apple phones, tablets and all kinds of accessories continue to arrive in massive quantities — with the company’s knowledge — through resale from third countries, namely Turkey, China and Central Asian nations.

The Russian government legalized smuggling at the start of the war, calling the scheme parallel imports. However, prices in Russia are much higher than in the rest of the world due to the import problems caused by the sanctions. For example, the new 256-gigabyte iPhone 16 Pro is on pre-sale at one of the country’s main technology chains — MVideo — for 165,999 rubles, which is about $1,780 at the current exchange rate. That’s around $400 more than the recommended price, a 33% markup. However, demand is up 15% compared to the previous generation, a resale company told Reuters.

The Kremlin’s use of VPNs and censored networks

This double game extends to control of the internet. The Russian government has banned access to foreign social networks, including X, Facebook and Instagram; the latter have been declared extremist organizations, so using them theoretically entails prison sentences. However, Russian official bodies and many personalities close to the Kremlin continue to use these social networks via VPN.

Moscow claims that using VPN apps is not a crime, while simultaneously cracking down on the networks. “I am unaware of any penalties,” Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov replied in April to the umpteenth question from Russian journalists about the risk of using VPNs — secretly, everyone uses them. “Efforts are being made by Roskomnadzor to block certain VPN services,” the Kremlin press chief added. “These efforts will continue, in fact, in order to reduce the possibility of getting around the blocking [of banned resources].”

Peskov himself admitted in April 2022 that he had a VPN installed on his cell phone. “Well, of course. Well, why not? This is not prohibited,” said the Russian president’s spokesman. Weeks earlier, the Russian government had banned access to Instagram within Russia, following criticism of the army and Russian President Vladimir Putin over the Bucha massacre in Ukraine and other similar atrocities. Today, however, Instagram remains one of the most popular social networks in Russia, with most users posting about their idyllic life rather than the war in Ukraine. The issue is that, since it has been declared an extremist organization, legally any interaction with Instagram could be considered a crime, despite the Kremlin’s assurances that this is not the case.

Pro-Russian outlets use social media platforms to spread their message abroad and among Russians who still access the networks with VPNs. This list includes the state-funded Russia Today, which was banned by Meta after U.S. reports linking the outlet to the Russian Secret Service, and the Kremlin itself. Peskov acknowledged last week that the government uses social media to spread pro-Russian propaganda in the West. “We are using all available resources to disseminate information about the president’s work,” Putin’s spokesman said when asked why the Kremlin has resumed posting videos on its YouTube channel despite the fact that the platform has been slowed down — but not banned — by Roskomnadzor, to such an extent that it does not work without the use of VPNs.

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