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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’s creator and Minakov say they are working together, while experts cited by The Bell differ on the service’s code and usefulness.
Former Russian internet regulator employee Vladislav Minakov wrote nearly 90% of the code in the latest release of AIVPN, a service marketed to help users bypass website blocks, according to an investigation by The Bell reported by Meduza on October 28. Minakov previously worked at a Roskomnadzor agency responsible for monitoring whether internet providers block sites on official banned lists, a background that has prompted questions about the service’s developers and security.
The Bell’s Maria Kolomychenko examined AIVPN’s public GitHub commit history, which records changes to the project. According to the report, a contributor using the handle vminakov joined in June 2026 and made several hundred changes affecting hundreds of thousands of lines of code. The Bell used the AI model Claude to analyze the latest release and calculated that this account contributed nearly 90% of its source code and most of its key components.
The report identifies vminakov as Vladislav Minakov. He previously worked at the Main Radio Frequency Center, a body associated with Roskomnadzor, where his responsibilities included work on the Revizor system. That system checks whether Russian internet service providers are complying with website-blocking requirements. The Bell reported that Minakov rose to the role of technical adviser to the center’s director and left for another job in 2023. His LinkedIn profile says he now leads software development at GlavNIVTs, an organization overseen by the Russian Presidential Property Management Directorate.
AIVPN’s creator, Oleg Kirichenko, told The Bell that he met Minakov through GitHub after Minakov submitted a proposed code change. Kirichenko said he confirmed Minakov’s former employment, contacted him, and checked his account before they began working together. Minakov also confirmed to The Bell that he helps develop the service. The report describes AIVPN as a tool intended to disguise VPN traffic so it can evade detection by deep packet inspection systems.
A Censor’s Work on Circumvention
The report places a former participant in Russia’s website-blocking infrastructure on the development team of a service marketed for getting around those restrictions. That connection may matter to prospective users who need to decide whether to trust software that could carry their internet traffic. It also makes who develops the tool part of the security discussion, alongside what the code does and how it is reviewed.
The reporting does not establish that Minakov inserted harmful code or that AIVPN is unsafe. A review requested by The Bell found no suspicious code in a quick examination, according to RKS Global co-founder Sarkis Darbinyan. But Darbinyan said Minakov’s professional background still raised concerns. The competing points are relevant: a preliminary code check and a developer’s past work each inform the discussion, but neither alone settles whether users should trust the service.
The story also highlights a practical question for censorship-circumvention tools: disguising traffic may not be enough if users cannot reach the infrastructure carrying it. An IT expert quoted by The Bell argued that hosting access and network throttling can limit a tool’s effectiveness regardless of its protocol design. The report does not independently measure AIVPN’s performance.
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How AIVPN’s Developer Emerged
AIVPN advertisements began appearing online in the spring of 2026. Kirichenko, an IT entrepreneur from Rostov-on-Don who now lives in Turkey and works on artificial-intelligence projects, describes himself as the service’s creator. He told The Bell that he developed it to help people in countries where access to information is restricted.
The project’s public history shows Minakov began contributing in June 2026. Kirichenko told The Bell he did not have time to do much work on AIVPN himself and described Minakov’s contributions as useful. Minakov said he became interested in the project because reliable data transmission had become difficult, including between data centers. He characterized AIVPN as useful for that problem and said bypassing blocks was only one possible application.
Minakov’s reported current position is also in government-linked software development: his LinkedIn profile says he heads software development at GlavNIVTs, which builds and deploys information systems for government agencies. The Bell reported that Minakov said his AIVPN work is unrelated to his main job and has no political or commercial dimension.
““I just don’t have time to do much work on this project right now.””
— Oleg Kirichenko, AIVPN’s creator, speaking to The Bell
Security and Performance Questions
The report does not establish whether AIVPN contains vulnerabilities, deliberately harmful functionality, or code that exposes users’ information. RKS Global’s assessment was described as a quick review, not a full security audit, and The Bell’s use of Claude to estimate code contributions is a reported analysis of the commit history rather than a complete independent audit of every component.
It is also unclear how effectively AIVPN works in practice against Russian blocking systems, whether its traffic can reliably evade deep packet inspection, or how vulnerable its supporting infrastructure is to blocking. Minakov says the project has no political or commercial dimension and is separate from his main job; the report does not independently verify those statements. The motivations behind his contributions remain unknown.
Further Review Could Clarify Risks
The report does not identify a scheduled audit, regulatory decision, or next development milestone for AIVPN. The most direct next step for evaluating the concerns would be a fuller technical review that examines the released code, its dependencies, how it handles user data, and whether its traffic-disguising claims hold up under testing. The Bell’s report does not say that such an assessment has been commissioned.
For now, the available information consists of the project’s public contribution history, statements from Kirichenko and Minakov, and the expert comments reported by The Bell. Users and researchers will need further evidence to assess the service’s security and real-world performance.
Key Questions
Who is Vladislav Minakov?
According to The Bell’s reporting, Minakov is a software developer who previously worked at the Main Radio Frequency Center, a Roskomnadzor agency involved in checking website blocking. The report says he now leads software development at GlavNIVTs, based on his LinkedIn profile.
What is AIVPN designed to do?
AIVPN is marketed as a service that disguises VPN traffic to help it avoid detection by deep packet inspection systems and allow users to bypass website blocks. The report does not independently verify how well it performs.
How much of AIVPN’s code did Minakov write?
The Bell used the AI model Claude to analyze the project’s GitHub history and estimated that Minakov’s account contributed nearly 90% of the source code in the latest release. That figure is the outlet’s reported analysis, not a measure independently confirmed in the source material.
Has AIVPN been found to contain harmful code?
The report does not say that harmful code was found. RKS Global’s Sarkis Darbinyan said a quick review found nothing suspicious, while noting that Minakov’s background raised concerns. A quick review is not the same as a complete security audit.
What remains unknown about the service?
The report leaves open whether AIVPN is safe for users, how it handles their data, how well it resists blocking in practice, and why Minakov chose to contribute. It provides no independent performance testing or full audit findings.
Source: meduza.io
