DNS censorship leaks geographically: Russia's neighbors show materially elevated censorship rates despite low independent censorship of their own — Lithuania 21.73%, Norway 12.04%, Finland 12.03% — compared to Russia itself at 43.59%, consistent with DNS queries from those countries transiting Russian infrastructure and being hit by Russian DNS injection.
From 2025-lipphardt-1-800-censorship — 1-800-Censorship: Analyzing internet censorship data using the Internet Yellow Pages
· §4.1, Table 1
· 2025
· Free and Open Communications on the Internet
Implications
For users in Russia-adjacent countries, treat DNS resolution failures as potentially caused by transit injection, not just local ISP blocking; deploy encrypted DNS (DoH/DoT) to prevent exposure on transit hops.
When deploying circumvention relays in Eastern European countries, verify DNS resolution paths do not traverse Russian-operated ASNs before assuming a clean network path.