The Russian government has also blocked access to millions of IP addresses linked to Google. The government’s actions are predicated on an ongoing lawsuit between the government and Telegram Messenger LLP—the developers of the encrypted chat app Telegram. Essentially, the Russian government wants access to Telegram’s encryption keys, in order to allow it access to the communication between users. Telegram has denied the request multiple times.
Popular games such as Vainglory and Guild Wars 2 have also been affected by the bans.
“We can confirm we are seeing a degradation in our service in Russia as a result of sudden, broad restrictions on network connectivity there,” Kristian Segerstrale, CEO of Vainglory developer Super Evil Megacorp, told Dot Esports in an email. “Many players have found work-arounds by using VPN software and appear to be sharing successful solutions. Our engineers are working to identify further ways that we can help our players connect.”
For the time being, Twitch is still accessible to Russian users that use a virtual private network (VPN), which masks their location by replacing their IP address to one in another country.
Dot Esports reached out to Twitch for comment, but the company did not respond by publication time.
