VPN for Ukraine(Україна)

Ukraine's internet is split. In government-controlled territory it runs through Kyivstar (the largest mobile carrier, owned by VEON), Vodafone Ukraine, lifecell, and Ukrtelecom (the historical fixed-line incumbent), with substantial competitive ISP layer in Kyiv and other cities. Total internet penetration sits around 80% per We Are Social Digital 2025 — significantly degraded since the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022 due to infrastructure damage and rolling blackouts.

The regulator in government-controlled Ukraine is the National Commission for State Regulation of Electronic Communications (NKRZI). The relevant law is the 2003 Telecommunications Law as amended, plus Presidential decrees that have authorised content blocking since 2017. Ukraine itself does not run national-scale DPI against VPN traffic — the regulatory pattern is platform-level blocks against Russian and Russian-aligned services, implemented at the ISP DNS and IP gateway level.

In Russian-occupied territory (parts of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson oblasts, plus Crimea since 2014), the picture is different. Russian operators have been pushed in to replace Ukrainian carriers — Miranda-Media in Crimea, "Phoenix" in occupied Donbas — and these operators connect through Russian transit, which means traffic flows through TSPU. TSPU is the deep packet inspection infrastructure deployed by Roskomnadzor across the Russian internet since around 2021. It actively filters WireGuard, OpenVPN, and most VPN protocols. Independent reporting (CitizenLab, Access Now) has documented that occupied-territory residents face a Russian-equivalent threat profile on top of physical-checkpoint risk.

Two separate blocking patterns to understand:

**In Ukrainian-controlled territory:**

- **Russian platforms** — VKontakte, Odnoklassniki, Yandex services, Mail.ru blocked since May 2017 under Presidential Decree 133/2017. These are pure ISP-level DNS and IP blocks, easily routed around with any VPN. - **Russian state media** — RT, Sputnik, RIA Novosti, TASS blocked since 2014 escalation, hardened in 2022. - **Russian-aligned crypto and payment rails** — sanctioned exchanges blocked at the ISP and banking level. - **No persistent platform blocks against Western services** — Western news, social media, and tools all work without a VPN. Ukraine is not a censorship state in the Russian sense.

**In Russian-occupied territory:**

- **TSPU filtering** — same as mainland Russia. WireGuard heavily throttled, OpenVPN throttled, plain VLESS throttled, only obfuscated VLESS Reality, NaiveProxy, and Hysteria reliably work. - **Ukrainian platforms** — Diia, ePidtrymka, Ukrainian banking apps may be blocked or unreliable. - **Western platforms** — same Russia-style restrictions apply: Instagram and Facebook blocked since 2022 (Meta designated extremist), X blocked, Telegram periodic, YouTube progressively throttled. - **Physical-checkpoint risk** — independent reporting from human rights monitors documents detentions of residents whose phones contained VPN apps, Telegram channels considered "extremist," or photos of Ukrainian symbols. The presence of a VPN app itself can be the trigger.

For Ukrainian users abroad — diaspora across Poland, Germany, Czech Republic, the UK — the use cases are different again: accessing Ukrainian banking from abroad, accessing Diia, watching Ukrainian broadcasts geo-fenced to Ukrainian IPs.

Three concrete cases that map to three audience groups.

For users in government-controlled Ukraine: baseline privacy from carrier-level data retention, access to international services that geo-fence Ukrainian IPs (some sanctions-related restrictions on Ukrainian-IP access cut both ways), and unrestricted access to Western and Russian-blocked content. Plus journalist source protection — Ukraine has an active independent press, and source-protection threat models include both Russian intelligence interest and routine SBU legal process.

For users in Russian-occupied territory: surviving TSPU is the requirement, and a stealth-class protocol is the only thing that does it reliably. We have to be honest that a VPN app on your device is itself a checkpoint risk — we cannot fix that, but we can keep the tunnel itself unfingerprintable when active. Open Telegram and disable VPN before approaching checkpoints; never carry obvious VPN client apps with branded icons.

For Ukrainian diaspora: accessing Ukrainian banking, Diia, Privat24, Monobank, and Ukrainian streaming requires a Ukrainian-IP exit. Fexyn does not currently offer Ukrainian exit IPs (we explicitly do not place servers in active conflict jurisdictions).

Three things that matter for Ukrainian users specifically. **Fexyn Stealth (VLESS Reality)** is the protocol class designed for TSPU-class networks. This matters most for users in Russian-occupied territory, but is also the right baseline if your work involves any Russian-aligned network exposure.

**Crypto billing** matters because Western payment rails to Ukrainian users have been unstable since 2022. Some Ukrainian Visa and Mastercard cards intermittently fail on Western VPN merchant codes. OXProcessing accepts BTC, USDT, ETH, and other major coins — no card needed.

**No-logs structurally**, not as marketing. Fexyn does not log browsing history, DNS queries, or traffic content. We issue 24-hour short-lived certificates from a Vault PKI, so even a server-side compromise has a hard time horizon. For a journalist source-protection threat model, this is the structural property that matters.

Tier 3 pricing — $4.49/month. The 7-day no-card trial means you can verify Stealth on your specific Kyivstar, Vodafone Ukraine, or (in occupied areas) Miranda-Media connection before paying.

**Install before you need it.** If you are travelling to or from occupied territory, install Fexyn from a safe network — at home in Kyiv, at a hotel in Lviv, at a friend's place in Warsaw — before you cross into a TSPU-monitored network where downloading might be hard or risky.

Sign up at fexyn.com/pricing. Tier 3 detection at checkout shows USD-equivalent in UAH. The 7-day trial does not require a card. Card payment via Stripe works on most Ukrainian Visa and Mastercard, though some banks intermittently reject international VPN merchants. Crypto via OXProcessing is the reliable fallback.

Install the Windows app from fexyn.com/download/windows. **In government-controlled Ukraine**, Fexyn Bolt (WireGuard) works fine. Frankfurt is the closest server, typically 30-50ms from Kyiv or Lviv. **In Russian-occupied territory**, pin Fexyn Stealth as the default protocol in app settings. Stealth uses an extra ~150ms of handshake and is designed for TSPU-class networks. Frankfurt or Helsinki are recommended exits — both well outside the Russian peering radius.

Operational note for occupied-area users: disable Fexyn before approaching checkpoints. Consider whether you need the Fexyn app icon on your home screen at all, or whether having only the Windows-app version on your laptop is the safer pattern.