As a guy from Russia, I must admit that vpns are not a big problem for censors. They can be easily blocked, including self-hosted ones by protocol detection. And DNS would not do much with IP and clienthello-based blocks. And most users are not enough tech-savvy to constantly switch to new protocols as old ones get blocked.
You have no rights in Russia.
VPNs can’t be categorically banned in the US without major first amendment issues. It’s not a huge technical issue, but unless the courts just throw out the Constitution (a risk that we’re seeing too much of, but still a meaningful bar to cross), there are huge legal barriers to doing so.
Your government doesn’t need to care about legal barriers because you have a dictator who can act unilaterally.
