Vkontakte won? What awaits the social network in Ukraine

Russian social network banned in Ukraine VKontakte managed to partially bypass the blockade, Ukrainian law enforcement officers promise to respond.

Russian social media in Ukraine was banned in May 2017 during the Petro Poroshenko presidency. Three years later, President Vladimir Zeelnsky continued the ban. However, it recently turned out that Vkontakte managed to bypass the blockade, and the social network is available on the territory of Ukraine in a mobile application.

Correspondent.net Understood the situation around the social network.

Bypass operation

The social network itself reported that Vkontakte has learned to circumvent the blockade of Ukraine.

“We have added a proxy to the application itself so that you can use it without restrictions. Update the VK application: communicate freely and without borders, ”says the letter from the social network to the Ukrainian users who continued to use it.

Even in the verified VK Ukraine group, which has not been updated since April 2018, today, September 12, a new message has appeared – about the appearance of the Ukraine tape.

VK was able to bypass the blockade in Ukraine on a mobile phone. On a personal computer, to enter the social network, as before, you need a VPN.

In fact, VKontakte did the same as in Russia: the Telegram messenger bypassed the block, via a proxy server. This is an intermediary server, through which the request is not made directly.

When the request goes directly to the domain (that is, the site you want to open), what you need, and it is blocked, you will not be able to enter. But if there is an intermediary server, the request first goes to another place, which is not blocked in Ukraine, and provides all the domain information you need.

A state that wants to keep blocking something can theoretically resist such evasions, but this is quite difficult and requires a powerful infrastructure, for example, as in China. Government structures should block these proxy servers through all Internet providers, but they can change, that is, it will be a game of cat and mouse.

Promise an answer

But the Ukrainian law enforcement officials promise to respond to the actions of the social network.

Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council Alexei Danilov said that Ukrainian users of the social network would be registered and verified for the distribution of Russian content.

“I would like to draw your attention to the users of the prohibited resource. It should also be their responsibility, why they do it and why they do it. All these users will be registered. If they continue to distribute Russian content on the territory of Ukraine, then they will have certain problems with our National Police, with our security forces, “he said at a press conference.

Danilov added that the VKontakte blockade problem will be solved in the near future with the help of international partners.

“There are institutions in Ukraine that are directly responsible for this. Now this issue is underway and we believe that in the near future, with the help of our international partners, we will solve this problem, ”emphasized the Secretary of the NSDC.

Long story

Russian Internet services Yandex, Mail.ru Group, VKontakte and Odnoklassniki have been banned in Ukraine since 2017. The reason for this was the use of these companies and social networks by Russian special services for information warfare.

In 2020, Ukraine has expanded Ukraine has extended the ban on Russian social networks Odnoklassniki and VKontakte, resources of Mail.ru services for three years. At the same time, the sanctions against Yandex and its services, Kaspersky Lab and Doctor Web were extended for one year.