The VPN purge of Russian official application stores continues, small suppliers becoming the new target after Apple and Google.
Between May 15 and 16, 2025, Samsung and Xiaomi both removed the ADGUARD VPN application at the Roskomnadzor request. At least another VPN supplier, HideMyname VPN, was also withdrawn from the Huawei store in Russia and China – a Russian Digital Rights Defense Group, VPN Guild, confirmed in Techradar.
“The removal of VPN applications of application stores marks a clear escalation of Russia’s repression against digital confidentiality tools,” said the president of the VPN guild, Alexey Kozliuk.
Not an isolated incident
Recent events, Kozliuk explains, are not isolated incidents, but part of a wider and in progress campaign to block access by Russian citizens to uncon censored information and to control the use of the Internet.
In October 2023, for example, Hidemyname brought a first legal action against the infamous Kremlin censorship regulator, Roskomnadzor. In January 2024, the authorities judged that the supplier VPN was a “foreign agent”.
In March 2024, the government then adopted a new law to criminalize the propagation of information on the means of bypassing internet restrictions. This is probably the legal basis on which the Russian censur organization began to publish these requests for referring to technological companies.
From July 2024, Apple deleted at least 60 VPN applications, including Adguard VPN, a popular Russian service and Amnezia VPN, alongside some of the best VPN services on the market. This has brought the total number to nearly 100 VPN applications unavailable in the Russian App Store.
While Google seems mainly resistant to these requests so far, recent data show that at least 53 VPNs are not currently unavailable in Google Play Store in Russia.
Now, the authorities’ objectives have also expanded to suppliers of small app stores.
“We see a coordinated compression on platforms, limiting the ability of users to circumvent restrictions,” said Kozliuk. “What is particularly worrying is the growing role of global technological companies in the application of local censorship, whether under direct pressure of the state or as a pre -emptive compliance.”
Greatfire’s campaign and advocacy director, Benjamin Ismail, also shared the same concerns. Thanks to the application of the organization’s project, Ismail and the team were busy monitoring an amazing increase in these VPN eliminations in Apple and Google official application stores.
Although it is the first time that ismail has heard such an incident involving the Samsung Galaxy App Store, he told Techradar that a supplier of smaller supplier (FD-Droid) had also been responded by a similar request in 2024.
According to Ismail, this may mean that Roskomnadzor understood that he can try his chance to put pressure on technological sellers. “Small providers can fight more to resist these requests, because the prospect of becoming fully unavailable in Russia could be a problem for these platforms,” he added.
VPNs will remain a line of critical defense for digital freedom
Alexey Kozliuk, VPN Guild chair
This is exactly why experts have long argued that the great giants of technology, who have the means and resources, should maintain the human rights of their users and to question the censorship requests of the Kremlin.
Commenting on this point, Kozliuk of the VPN guild said: “This underlines the urgent need to give users more control and make them less dependent on centralized platforms and application ecosystems, as well as the need to advocate international to keep responsible technological platforms.
“While political tensions are increasing, in particular around elections or demonstrations, these repressions will probably intensify – and VPNs will remain a line of critical defense for digital freedom.”
