- Apple deleted DVPN from its app store at the request of Russia
- The decentralized VPN of Norse Labs was among the best free Apple VPN applications
- More than 100 VPNs are not currently available in the Russian apple App Store, with at least 60 applications killed since July of last year
Earlier in the day, on April 17, 2025, the founder and CEO of Norse Labs, Aleksandr Litreev, received an Apple notification that his decentralized VPN application was deleted according to Roskomnadzor’s request “because it includes illegal content in Russia”.
The DVPN Norse Labs application has recently gained popularity across the country, ranking n ° 3 among the best free Apple applications before the block – the supplier reported. This adds to more than 100 VPNs, including some of the best VPNs on the market, currently unavailable in the Apple App Store in Russia.
Apple continues to kill Popular Russian VPNs
“Barely a few hours ago, Apple deleted our DVPN Norse Labs application from the Russian App Store – without any valid justice order – at the request of Roskomnadzor, the government’s censorship agency,” said Litreev in a post X on Thursday morning.
A free VPN application in particular for Russian users of Apple TV, Mac and IPAD, DVPN is a decentralized VPN service by Norse Labs which is based on a global network of independent nodes rather than on centralized VPN servers.
This feature, explains the supplier on its official website, should make much more difficult for governments or ISPs to block access to the service. It does not only promise better confidentiality and security, but also stronger censorship bypass – exactly what is necessary to bypass Roskomnadzor Internet blocks currently in place.
A Russian activist and computer engineer, Litreev is a well -known opposition figure in Russia which was involved in the Alexei Navalny movement. In 2020, he managed to flee to Estonia and escape the trial.
Since then, he has worked in the decentralized VPN space to offer intimacy and anti-censure solutions to help people in Russia, China, Venezuela and other countries applying strong national internet control.
“Ensuring safe and free access to the independent media is a fundamental duty of any democratic power in the struggle for human rights, and Apple has chosen the wrong side,” said Litreev.
Barely a few hours ago, @apple deleted our @norselabs dvpn application from the Russian app store – without any valid justice prescription – at the request of Roskomnadzor, the government censorship agency.thread 👇 pic.twitter.com/cvwwczjsaoApril 17, 2025
Norse Labs is only the last victim of the Roskomnadzor Crusade against VPN.
VPN censorship efforts have intensified in 2024 since a law was applied in March to start to criminalize the dissemination of information on the means of bypassing the restrictions on the Internet. This is probably the legal basis on which the Russian censorship body issues these requests.
In 2024 alone, Apple was found at least 60 VPN applications in this way, bringing the total to 98 applications not available in VPN in September. These include some of Techradar’s favorites, such as NordVPN, ExpressVPN and Protonvpn.
The current assessment should be even higher, especially since the popular Russian VPN, Amnezia VPN, would have disappeared from the country’s app store at the end of October, becoming the last target of Russia’s anti-VPN actions in 2024.
While Apple seems to have been largely in line with Russia’s orders so far, Google Play has also been targeted by similar withdrawal requests.
According to the latest appcentroship data, Google received 212 VPN blocking commands between March and April 2025. Among these, however, only 6 applications seemed to have been deleted so far, bearing the total VPN services not available on Google Play Store from Russia at 53.
How to continue downloading unavailable VPNs
LitREEV has made sure that all users who have already downloaded the DVPN NORSE Labs application before its deletion know that the application they have downloaded is not at risk.
“The application will continue to operate despite the Russian government attempts to block it,” he said.
In case you have not yet downloaded, you can always do it by modifying the region of your application store in any other country. The DVPN application remains available worldwide.
Another alternative is to use the DVPN Mini-App version that the supplier launched on Telegram. It will remain functional as long as Telegram, explains Litreev.
“While we are working on a tool to help our Russian users get around this absurd restriction and directly install the application, we also assess our options for legal action,” he added.
