The usual anti-Brave hate wagon, with FUD and pitchforks. They're already working on it:
https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/issues/33726
VPN is a paid service, it doesn't connect to anywhere if one doesn't pay. This is just a service installed just in case. And complaining about this while using Windows , the OS with unavoidable telemetry, spyware and ads is just laughable.
Mozilla did far worse "mistakes" over the time (Pocket , Cliqz, Mr. Robot, deal with the worst privacy offenders on the Earth such as Google Facebook, Amazon, CEO pay rise while firing devs and losing market share, while begging for donations... and so on) but they somehow always get a free pass, with people swallowing Mozilla's corpo PR every single time.