Russia prepares for the possibility of completely disconnecting from the global internet
Russia is preparing for the possibility of completely disconnecting from the global internet, with its citizens only browsing a network fully controlled by Moscow.
On Saturday, the Russian government gave orders for all state websites and services to switch to the Russian Domain Name System by March 11th. “This is necessary to protect resources from cyberattacks and for the possibility of a disconnection from the outside”, reports the Russian newspaper Kommersant quoted by The Guardian.
Still, the Russian Ministry of Digital Development told Kommersant that there are no plans for a complete cut with the global internet for now.
“We are preparing for various scenarios to ensure that Russian resources are available to citizens,” the ministry said. “The telegram sent to government agencies details a set of simple cyber hygiene recommendations that will help organize work more effectively to protect our resources from malicious traffic, to keep services running, and to control names. domain.”
In practice, this is a step towards Russian independence from the internet — a goal that Moscow has never hidden and that could now intensify in a context in which Russia finds itself increasingly isolated from the Western world and seeks to control meticulously the information that circulates within its territory.
This week, the Kremlin implemented a set of new laws that attack freedom of the press and expression, criminalizing the dissemination of information that characterizes the invasion of Ukraine as, precisely, an “invasion” or a “war” and leading to several international media to stop operating from Russia.
In 2019, Russia had already successfully tested its digital independence by disconnecting from the global internet for a day without citizens realizing it.
The objective, as reported at the time by the BBC, is the creation of RuNet, a Russian version of the internet. RuNet, the ultimate goal of Moscow, would be, in practice, like a huge intranet of national dimensions, whose points of contact with the global internet would be controlled by the state — similarly to what several companies currently do to control and limit the use of the internet that is done on the devices your employees work on, but applied in a fully comprehensive way to an entire country.
The end result will be full control by the Russian state of online content that Russians can and cannot access, as well as full control of Russian activity.
Russia even wants to create its own version of Wikipedia, the most popular digital encyclopedia on the planet. The aim, according to a report published by The Moscow Times in 2019, when the intention was announced, is to ensure that Russians have access to “detailed and reliable” information about Russia.
