Intensified Restrictions on Access to Online Resources Outside Russia
How Resilient Is Liberator VPN to the New Wave of Internet Blocks in Russia
Liberator VPN was born in 2018 and has come a long way since its humble beginnings as a personal side project. Today, it has evolved into a complex, globally distributed information system built on the principles of maximum efficiency and fault tolerance, even under extreme conditions of internet censorship and blocking.
Our primary focus has always been — and remains — the unique challenges of operating within Russia’s network environment.
As of the end of 2025, Liberator VPN remains highly resilient and reliable. We operate a globally distributed infrastructure with numerous redundant servers and maintain round-the-clock monitoring of our entire system.
Today, very few VPN services in Russia place genuine emphasis on reliability and fault tolerance across all conditions — or invest in proper redundancy of both hardware and network channels. By contrast, many so-called “VPN bots” that have appeared on Telegram in recent years exist purely to cash in on the hype. Their goal is simple: make quick money while the opportunity lasts. They rely on aggressive, misleading advertising, dump prices irresponsibly, and try to grab as much revenue as possible today — knowing that tomorrow, the window may close.
Temptingly cheap annual plans, rock-bottom monthly subscriptions, exaggerated promises of “ultra-high speed” — all are signs of desperate attempts to attract users at any cost. These services are typically built using the most generic, mass-market, and trendy technologies — cookie-cutter templates copied wholesale. Such patterns are well known not only to amateur “VPN makers”, but also to Roskomnadzor, and these are the first to be identified and blocked.
Our Core Principle: Impeccable Quality
Since our launch in 2018, during the first wave of Telegram blockades in Russia, Liberator VPN has been founded on one principle above all: uncompromising service quality.
We were among the very first VPN providers to offer connections directly through Telegram bots, setting early standards for reliability and user experience. We continue to invest significant time and effort in developing unique, proprietary technologies for bypassing censorship, using our own stack of custom-built solutions.
We do not run paid advertising campaigns — our users find us through trust and word of mouth. We understand the real value of what we’ve built, and we stand behind it.
Reliability and Continuity
After years of adaptation to ever-changing conditions, our systems are designed so that most issues go completely unnoticed by users. Known types of incidents are automatically mitigated through layered fail-safes; others might briefly appear as longer connection times or temporary drops in speed, but overall, our uptime consistently remains at 99.99%.
Since 2018, there has not been a single full-scale service failure on our side. Maintaining consistent reliability under any circumstances is our highest operational priority. We recognise that for many users, VPN connectivity directly affects not only their work and income, but also their peace of mind.
External Factors Beyond Our Control
At times, there are global or regional network disruptions that we cannot influence, as we do not control the physical data transmission layer between users and our servers — particularly in countries with strict authoritarian regimes. It’s important to understand this limitation clearly.
In such environments, local network infrastructure is routinely interfered with by well-paid, over-obedient, and not particularly competent operators who hold the authority to twist and throttle national data networks at will “to achieve results”. Their actions inconvenience everyone — that’s their job. Our job is to ensure that the effects of their interference are minimised as much as possible for our users.
We cannot completely prevent these incidents — they are akin to natural disasters — but we can anticipate them and design measures to reduce their impact. If an incident lasts longer than one or two hours, we typically issue personal notifications and provide users with practical workarounds.
On rare occasions — a few times a year — isolated technical issues may occur on individual servers on our side. Such events affect only a small fraction of users and are usually resolved swiftly, without public announcements.
If Your VPN Connection Stops Working
If your VPN suddenly stops working, the cause is almost always an artificial network disruption created by your internet provider or by upstream border gateways. Such disruptions occur regularly — almost daily — yet in most cases, Liberator VPN smooths them out seamlessly so that users never notice.
About “Whitelists”
“Whitelists” (in the Russian context) refer to lists of websites and online resources that remain accessible during a total internet shutdown. If international internet access is fully blocked and only whitelisted sites are permitted, then VPN connections physically cannot function, since the networks hosting VPN servers are unreachable.
Some providers claim that their VPNs can still work during a complete shutdown. Yes — this can occasionally be true, as temporary loopholes sometimes remain due to hastily configured whitelists. However, such functionality is not a permanent or guaranteed solution. Over time, these gaps will inevitably be closed as enforcement tightens.
Moreover, individual ISPs often apply their own traffic restrictions. Sometimes, only customers of a specific provider are affected. It’s not uncommon for two neighbours in the same building — connected through the same network — to experience completely different results: one with most foreign websites blocked, and the other unaffected. How these decisions are made is anyone’s guess.
Providers themselves have no incentive to make life difficult for their customers, but they no longer make the rules. They are obliged to “comply with requirements and cooperate” — even when it inconveniences users.
How VPN Connections Work
Every VPN tunnel requires a minimally functional internet transport layer along the entire route to its server. If that base layer is disrupted anywhere, the VPN simply cannot establish a connection — which to the user looks like “the service is broken”. This is, in fact, one of Roskomnadzor’s deliberate tactics: to make VPN usage in Russia as inconvenient as possible. Where outright blocking is impossible, they aim to degrade performance so that users give up on VPNs out of frustration.
What to Do If You Experience Problems
If a problem occurs suddenly during otherwise normal use, it is almost always temporary. Recent waves of deliberate network interference have typically lasted no more than 30 minutes. If an issue persists for an hour or longer, please report it to us.
When a problem is widespread and affects a significant number of users, we normally send an announcement with a summary and suggested solutions. In most cases, issues can be resolved through individual assistance from our team.
To help us assist you effectively, please include the following details in your message:
- When the issue began
- Whether it occurs on mobile data, Wi-Fi, or both
- Which connection region or endpoint you are using
- Whether the problem affects one or multiple devices
- A clear description of the issue (the more detail, the better)
- Any error messages or screenshots from your app (these are especially useful)
The term “Чебурнет” (Cheburnet) is a satirical nickname coined by Russian internet users and journalists. It’s a blend of:
“Чебурашка” (Cheburashka) — a beloved, cute Soviet cartoon character; and
“Интернет” (Internet) — meaning, of course, the internet.
So “Cheburnet” literally means “Cheburashka’s Internet”, or more loosely, “the cute, clumsy little Russian internet.”
The Meaning Behind the Joke
The nickname mocks the Russian government’s plan to build a “sovereign internet” — a system that can operate independently of the global web and allows the authorities to block, monitor, or isolate traffic at will.
It implies that the “Russian Internet” would be childlike, clumsy, closed-off, and provincial, just like Cheburashka — sweet but naïve, not part of the real world.
People began using the term around 2019, when Russia passed the “Sovereign Internet Law”, granting Roskomnadzor the power to centralise control over all internet traffic in the country.
In Short
“Cheburnet” = Russian state-controlled internet
Origin = mix of Cheburashka + Internet
Tone = ironic / mocking
Purpose = to criticise censorship and isolationism