OREANDA-NEWS  Almost 200 VPN services are blocked in the Russian Federation, said Sergey Khutortsev, director of the Center for Monitoring and Management of the Public Communications Network (CMU SSOP) of Roskomnadzor.

"Separately, we work with VPN services that violate the legislation of the Russian Federation as a means of bypassing locks. At the moment, 197 VPN services are blocked in our country," Khutortsev said on Thursday at the Spectrum 2024 forum.

At the last Spectrum forum on October 25, 2023, the head of the Center reported on the blocking of 167 VPN services in the Russian Federation.

Providing access to information prohibited in the Russian Federation was previously included in the list of threats to the stability and security of the Runet.

CMU SSOP was created on the basis of the "Main Radio Frequency Center" subordinated to Roskomnadzor as part of the implementation of the law on the sovereign Runet for centralized management of the public communications network through technical means of countering threats (TSPU).

Since March 1, 2024, the Russian Federation has banned the dissemination of information on the Internet that advertises or popularizes means of circumventing locks to access illegal content.