August’s VPN crackdown in Russia ran on data the country’s own apps had already collected on their users

In early August, Russia experienced one of its most sweeping waves of VPN blocking yet. Leonid Volkov, a senior figure at the Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK), called the attack “the biggest in history.” Meduza asked representatives of four VPN services — Liberty VPN, Amnezia VPN, Paper VPN, and BlancVPN — how this attack differs from previous ones and whether Roskomnadzor, Russia’s federal censorship agency, is following any logic in its decisions.