Bellingcat is Banned in Russia. Here’s How to Beat the Block

On March 16, Russia’s Prosecutor-General added Bellingcat’s website to a blocklist. This is the latest of Moscow’s ongoing attempts to prevent our investigations reaching the public.

We have been aware of the possibility that our website will be blocked for some time and remain committed to our readers in Russia. To that end, we have taken measures to ensure that they can continue to access our website. These include the use of Tor browsers and VPNs.

We’ve also rebooted our Russian-language channel on Telegram, the messaging service which has yet to be blocked by the Russian authorities. We particularly encourage our Russian readers to subscribe and join the (at time of writing) 26,000 others who have done so in the last week alone.

Cloudfront Mirrors

Bellingcat has created a mirror version of our website that is accessible directly through Cloudfront, a major content distribution network. Because Cloudfront is used widely across the internet, it is more difficult to directly block. These mirrors do not require any additional tools to access, but do not provide the same level of privacy as a VPN or the Tor browser. You can find the URLs below — please contact us via Telegram should any of these cease to work.

English: https://d1kn6o6up31pvd.cloudfront.net

Русский: https://d1v9s4gothlgrr.cloudfront.net

Français: https://d1ym11eofrxhxz.cloudfront.net

Español: https://dch0nhoeq467j.cloudfront.net

Deutsch: https://d33gsp7wc2wy41.cloudfront.net

Ukraine civilian casualties map: https://dar3kj2zfxmt7.cloudfront.net

Virtual Private Networks (VPNs)

A VPN (or virtual private network) is a piece of software that you install on your device (laptop, phone or tablet) in order to protect your internet connection. A VPN does that by “re-routing” your entire internet connection through a trusted server that sits between your machine and the world wide web. This allows you to hide your true location and protects your privacy by using strong encryption.

A VPN can also have a censorship circumvention function which allows you to access blocked internet content. The issue with using a VPN is one of trust: you need to make sure you trust the company that provides the service. While most VPN providers claim that they do not keep logs on their users, most of them, as it turns out, do.

Furthermore, the risk that a VPN provider might leak information on users or be susceptible to government requests remains high. However, if you trust your VPN provider more than you trust your ISP or your government, then it makes sense to use one, especially if it operates outside of the jurisdiction of your government.

But in any case, users should not expect that a VPN provides complete anonymity. We’d recommend that you find a provider that collects the least data about its users, offers a reliable and fast VPN service, uses strong encryption and engages in extensive auditing practices. We do not recommend the use of free VPN services; you could end up paying with your connection data to unknown third parties.

If you’re in Russia, check out the website of digital rights NGO Roskomsvoboda. There you’ll find a list of recommended VPNs as part of their ‘Open RuNet’ project.

We can’t fully vouch for any of these services ourselves, but they are popular by many Russian internet users.