Vladislav Minakov, a former employee of organisations working under Russia’s internet regulator Roskomnadzor, helped develop the AIVPN service for circumventing online blocks, The Bell reported on October 28. Its examination of the public GitHub repository found that Minakov, using the account name vminakov, wrote most of the project’s code.
According to The Bell’s calculations, Minakov accounted for about 88% of the source code in AIVPN version 1.1.0 — approximately 141,000 of 161,000 lines — and 325 of roughly 560 Git commits. The project was launched by another developer, Oleg Kirichenko, who promoted it under the username infosave2007. Its developers say that disguising data flows as common internet protocols makes the VPN harder for filtering systems to recognise.
Minakov spent around seven years in organisations affiliated with Roskomnadzor, including work on the Revizor system, which checks whether internet providers block prohibited websites. According to The Bell, he later took a senior position at an IT organisation within the Russian Presidential Property Management Department.
Minakov confirmed his previous employment and involvement with AIVPN to the reporters but challenged the suggestion that he had personally directed Russia’s online blocking. He also rejected suggestions that the new project served political interests or government assignments.