The longer Russia’s war with Ukraine lasts, the stronger and more creative the Western sanctions against Russia become. This time, the Americans decided to block the most popular fonts for the Russians Times New Roman and Arial.

The American company Monotype, which owns them, has blocked Russian users from accessing its library on the site. Less common but also highly respected fonts Verdana, Tahoma, and Helvetica were also sanctioned. When you try to access them from Russia, you may see the following message about the denial of access: “Probably the site owner has set restrictions that prevent you from accessing the site.”

School, but Times New Roman and Arial are available if you navigate to the site through a VPN service, thus hiding your Russian IP address. Note that this is not the first font restriction for Russia – in 2016 Monotype refused to license the local developer of Astra Linux operating systems for Times New Roman and Arial.