KAZAN, September 20. /TASS/. The authorities are not going to introduce penalties for the use of VPN services in Russia, Digital Development Minister Maksut Shadayev on the sidelines of the Kazan Digital Week forum.

"No, there won’t be [any punishment]. There will be no retribution," Shadayev said responding to a question from a TASS correspondent.

In early September, it became known that the Digital Development Ministry proposed to give the Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology, and Mass Media (Roskomnadzor) the authority to block VPN services.

In late July, President Vladimir Putin signed a law stipulating that those websites that provide information about how to bypass blocked resources in Russia should be included in the Unified Register of Prohibited Information of Roskomnadzor.

On September 18, Roskomnadzor published a draft order, according to which criteria were developed for blocking sites with information about ways to gain access to resources prohibited in Russia. The authorities can start blocking from March 1, 2024.