Russia’s State Duma has rushed through legislative amendments which impose serious fines for using VPNs to access ‘prohibited sites’ and modest fines for what is called ‘searches for knowingly extremist material’. This is yet another move by the Russian regime to censor and restrict information, with especially disturbing consequences to parts of Ukraine currently under Russian occupation. Russia’s list of so-called ‘extremist literature’ already contains over six thousand items and any Ukrainian websites and material telling the truth about Ukrainian culture, history and Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine have either already been banned as ‘extremist’ or are almost certainly blocked anyway.
The bill in question was adopted by Russia’s State Duma on 17 July 2025, with the articles added to Russia’s code of administrative offences due to come into effect on 1 September 2025. The independent Network Freedom Project ["Сетевые свободы"] notes that this was one of an ever-increasing number of occasions where repressive initiatives have been rushed into law by being added to other bills awaiting reading. This makes it possible to expedite the procedure, with bill having their second and third (final) readings on the same day. The method is also used to try to avert publicity over high-profile or contentious initiatives.
The amendments in this case add two new articles to Russia’s code of administrative offences. Article 13.52 imposes liability for infringing the rules for the use of VPNs in the Russian Federation or on illegally occupied Ukrainian territory. The fines here are potentially steep – from 50 thousand to 200 thousand roubles for an individual; from 80 to 300 thousand in the case of an official; and from 200 thousand to a million in the case of a legal entity.
Article 13.53 imposes liability for what is calling “searches for knowingly extremist material”, as well as for gaining access to these, including through the use of VPNs or other means of accessing resources where access has been restricted. This is the first time that Russia has imposed liability for using blocked Internet content, and though the fines themselves are fairly small – from 3 to 5 thousand roubles – there are grounds for concern, not only because of the precedent set. One of the ways of establishing whether a person has looked for such ‘extremist material’ is, of course, to get hold of their telephones, computers, etc. In occupied Ukraine, random checks, for example, of school students, to see if they are using Ukrainian distance learning apps or Ukrainian sites are already common and are likely to become even more frequent. With essentially all Ukrainian sites blocked, Article 13.53 will, presumably, make it possible to ignore the fact that Russia has not yet, formally, banned the use of VPNs by citing their use in accessing Ukrainian sites.
The amendments must also have a deterrent effect as Russia has already forced Internet providers to ‘cooperate’ with the FSB and other enforcement bodies by gathering and passing on information about Internet searches. The fear will, therefore, be legitimate that any supposed search for ‘extremist material’ could get reported.
Considering how many repressive laws the State Duma regularly churns out, it is interesting that some legislators appear to have balked at the imposition of liability, effectively, for an Internet search. The bill passed easily because it was supported by all deputies or Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s ‘United Russia’ party. All of the few communist or other party deputies either voted against (19 such votes) or, in 20 cases, abstained. Even one of Putin’s chief propagandists, Margarita Simonyan, was unhappy, asking how she and her ilk were supposed “to investigate and stigmatize” various ‘extremist organizations’ if they could not even read their material. Her brief post specifically mentions the Anti-Corruption Foundation, created by Alexei Navalny, and one of the many reasons why the politician was imprisoned, and almost certainly killed. The regime is currently hunting down and passing huge sentences against Russians merely for having sent donations to this foundation which exposed Kremlin and other high-level Russian corruption.
Russia’s legislation of what is claimed to be ‘extremism’ or ‘terrorism’ is not just used as a weapon against those investigating and exposing corruption. The ‘Federal list of extremist materials’, compiled and banned by Russia’s justice ministry, contains the book by Alexander Litvinenko and Yuri Felshtinsky on the FSB’s role in apartment bombings in 1999; Raphael Lemkin’s book on Genocide in Ukraine; and an appeal by the civic organization Voices of Beslan, which has sought, in vain, to establish the truth about the terrible massacre in Beslan School No. 1 in September 2004. The List contains religious material from the Jehovah’s Witnesses and several other religious faiths which the current regime is claiming to be ‘extremist’. After Russia’s politically compliant ‘Supreme court’ banned as ‘extremist’ something it claimed was “the LGBT movement” on 30 November 2023, any work espousing LGBT rights, etc. is likely to land on this list.
The list almost certainly contains huge number of books by world-renowned historians or thinkers, if their content, for example, on Ukrainian history clashes with the current regime’s ideology. In any part of Ukraine that has come under Russian occupation, the invaders have sought to eradicate and ban, for example, books about Holodomor, the manmade Famine in Ukraine in 1932/33; books on Ukrainian history; books by Ukrainian authors, especially those with a pronounced nationalist or simply patriotic position, and much more. In January 2023, all educational institutions in Russian-occupied Luhansk oblast were sent a list of supposedly ‘extremist’ books which were to be removed. This was, it was claimed, in order to get rid of “literature of an extremist nature, reflecting the ideology of Ukrainian nationalism.” The order was to remove any literature about Holodomor; on Ukrainian history or, essentially, any “publicist, research or monitoring” material published after 2014. The list of ‘prohibited’ books included works by renowned historians like Serhiy Plokhiy; Yaroslav Hrytsak and Anne Applebaum, as well as a biography of Metropolitan Andriy Sheptytsky by founding member of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group, Soviet political prisoner and internationally respected writer and thinker Myroslav Marynovych.
While there is clear danger from Article 13.53 that makes it illegal to look for religious or historical material; novels; material exposing corruption, etc. the new Article 13.52 seems even more ominous for occupied territory. Without VPNs, Ukrainians are unable to get any reliable information precisely because Ukrainian websites are blocked. While avoiding openly banning VPNs, the new law will increase the likelihood of spot checks on occupied territory, with yet another weapon now available of persecution for accessing those truthful sites that Russia is intent on blocking.
See also: Russia’s ‘strategy on fighting extremism’ is a threat to all Ukrainians on occupied territory
