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The Bell reports that Vladislav Minakov, a former employee of a Roskomnadzor agency involved in website blocking, wrote nearly 90% of the code in AIVPN’s latest release. AIVPN is marketed as a tool for disguising VPN traffic, but reviewers cited by The Bell said they had not established that the code was malicious; the developers’ motives and the service’s practical effectiveness remain disputed or unclear.
Former Russian website-blocking official Vladislav Minakov wrote nearly 90% of the code in the latest release of AIVPN, a service promoted as a way to bypass government website blocks, according to an investigation by The Bell reported by Meduza on October 28. The finding raises questions about the developers’ backgrounds and the service’s trustworthiness, but the reporting does not establish that AIVPN contains malicious code.
The Bell’s Maria Kolomychenko examined AIVPN’s GitHub commit history, which records changes to the project. The account vminakov joined in June 2026 and made several hundred changes affecting hundreds of thousands of lines of code. Using the AI model Claude to analyze the project, The Bell calculated that the account contributed nearly 90% of the source code in the latest release and developed most of its key components. The analysis is The Bell’s assessment of the code history, not an independent finding presented in the report.
The Bell identified vminakov as Vladislav Minakov, a former employee of the Main Radio Frequency Center, an agency under Roskomnadzor with responsibilities that include checking whether internet providers block sites on the government’s banned lists. Minakov worked on the center’s Revizor monitoring system and rose to become a technical adviser to its director. He left that job in 2023. His LinkedIn profile says he now heads software development at GlavNIVTs, an organization overseen by the Russian Presidential Property Management Directorate that develops information systems for government agencies.
AIVPN creator Oleg Kirichenko, an entrepreneur from Rostov-on-Don who now lives in Turkey, told The Bell that he met Minakov through GitHub and checked his former employment before accepting his contributions. Kirichenko said he had little time to work on the project himself. Minakov confirmed that he helps develop AIVPN. The service’s advertising, which appeared online in spring 2026, describes it as able to disguise VPN traffic so that it resembles ordinary internet traffic and evades detection by deep packet inspection systems.
Trust Questions Around AIVPN
A VPN service’s usefulness depends partly on users trusting the software and the people who build it. The reported role of a former official associated with Russia’s website-blocking infrastructure creates an evident concern for people considering AIVPN, particularly those who might rely on it to reach restricted information. A developer’s past employment alone does not show that a product is unsafe, but it gives users a reason to seek independent technical review and clear information about how the software works.
The report also points to a separate question: whether the service can reliably bypass restrictions in practice. IT expert Filipp Kulin told The Bell that disguising a protocol may not solve the problem if the hosting providers needed to connect through are themselves throttled or blocked. That assessment is his view, not a published performance test of AIVPN. The article provides no measured results showing how well the service works across networks or countries.
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From Website Blocking to VPN Code
Minakov’s former employer, the Main Radio Frequency Center, is described in the report as responsible in part for monitoring whether Russian internet service providers comply with website-blocking requirements. Its Revizor system checks access to sites on Roskomnadzor’s banned lists. The report says Minakov worked on that system before leaving the center in 2023; it does not say that he personally made decisions about which sites were blocked.
AIVPN began attracting online advertising in spring 2026. Kirichenko told The Bell he created the service to help people in countries where access to information is restricted. Minakov said he became interested because reliable data transmission can be difficult, including between data centers. The project’s visible history therefore places a former participant in Russia’s blocking infrastructure among the principal contributors to a tool marketed for getting around such restrictions.
“I checked everything very carefully, then we started working together, and he made some pretty useful changes.”
— Oleg Kirichenko, AIVPN’s creator, speaking to The Bell
Security and Performance Still Unverified
The reporting does not establish whether AIVPN contains vulnerabilities, hidden functions, or intentional surveillance tools. RKS Global specialists reportedly conducted a quick review and found nothing suspicious, but the article does not describe a complete audit, publish its methodology, or provide a detailed technical assessment. Minakov’s former work and political views, as described by people interviewed, are not proof of the software’s behavior.
It is also unclear how well AIVPN works against different blocking systems, whether its traffic-disguise claims hold up in independent testing, and what data the service collects or retains. The report does not provide evidence that Minakov’s work on AIVPN is connected to his current job at GlavNIVTs, or that his employer is involved in the project. Those questions remain separate from the confirmed reporting about his identity and code contributions.
Independent Review Is Still Needed
The next useful development would be a detailed, independently documented security audit of AIVPN, including its data handling, network behavior, and release history. Further information from the developers about ownership, funding, and the service’s relationship, if any, to their other work could also help users assess risk. The source material does not announce an audit, a response from GlavNIVTs, or a planned change to the project.
For now, users should distinguish the reported code contribution from conclusions the investigation does not make: The Bell identified Minakov as the dominant contributor to the latest release, while the available review described in the report did not find suspicious code in its quick examination. A definitive judgment about AIVPN’s safety or effectiveness has not been established by the material cited.
Key Questions
Who is Vladislav Minakov?
The Bell identified Minakov as the GitHub user vminakov and reported that he formerly worked at the Main Radio Frequency Center, a Roskomnadzor agency involved in monitoring website blocking. He confirmed to The Bell that he helps develop AIVPN.
What did The Bell report about Minakov’s code?
The Bell analyzed AIVPN’s GitHub history and, using the AI model Claude, calculated that Minakov contributed nearly 90% of the source code in the latest release. That figure is the publication’s analysis of the project history.
Has AIVPN been shown to contain malicious code?
No such finding is established in the report. RKS Global specialists reportedly found nothing suspicious in a quick review, while noting concerns about Minakov’s professional background. The report does not describe a full security audit.
Does AIVPN reliably bypass government blocks?
The source material does not provide independent performance tests. AIVPN is marketed as a way to disguise VPN traffic, but the service’s effectiveness against different blocking systems remains unclear.
What has the project’s creator said?
Oleg Kirichenko told The Bell that he created AIVPN to help people in countries with restricted access to information. He said he checked Minakov’s employment history after they met through GitHub and then began working with him.
Source: meduza.io
