Russia Denies Cutting Off From Global Internet, Web Infrastructure Provider Disconnects Service in Country

The logo of U.S. social network Twitter on a smartphone screen in Moscow on Oct. 12, 2021. (Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP via Getty Images)

Moscow has refuted media reports that suggest Russia is attempting to disconnect from the global internet, although the country had earlier successfully tested the idea, and a major infrastructure provider has now cut off services as part of international sanctions.

“Russian websites are continuously being attacked by cyberattacks from abroad,” the Russian Ministry of Digital Development told Interfax on March 7. “We are preparing for various scenarios to ensure the availability of Russian resources. There are no plans to turn off the Internet from within.”

The ministry has sent a letter to government agencies, laying down a set of recommendations on cyber hygiene. These recommendations are supposed to help organize government work more effectively, thereby protecting resources from malicious traffic, ensuring control over domain names, and maintaining the operation of various services.

Earlier, Belarus-based media outlet Nexta had reported on Moscow’s disconnection plan. “#Russia began active preparations for disconnection from the global Internet,” Nexta said in the tweet. “No later than March 11, all servers and domains must be transferred to the #Russian zone. In addition, detailed data on the network infrastructure of the sites is being collected.”

Russia has been working toward making its own version of the internet, completely independent from foreign control. In 2018, Moscow implemented the Digital Economy National Program that sought to protect the country’s digital infrastructure in a scenario where Russia was cut off from the global internet.

In 2019, Russia adopted the Sovereign Internet law, which gave the ruling administration powers to partition the country’s online access from the rest of the world, including the national fork of the DNS. Kremlin had deemed the move as countering the “aggressive nature” of America’s national cyber security strategy.

Free speech activists lambasted the policy as a move to increase government oversight over Russian cyberspace. Professor Alan Woodward, a computer scientist at the University of Surrey, had called the Russian alternative as “another step” in the increasing fragmentation of the world wide web.

“Increasingly, authoritarian countries which want to control what citizens see are looking at what Iran and China have already done,” Woodward told the BBC. “It means people will not have access to dialogue about what is going on in their own country, they will be kept within their own bubble.”

In June and July last year, Russia conducted a series of tests, which saw the participation of major domestic telecom firms, where the country successfully disconnected itself from the internet.

Meanwhile, Cogent Communications, an internet backbone provider, cut off its services in Russia as a protest against Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. Backbone providers are responsible for providing high-speed data transmission lines and related infrastructure. Though the move will not fully disconnect Russians from the world, it will potentially result in slower connectivity.

However, Cogent’s decision was severely criticized in a tweet by Eva Galperin, the director of cybersecurity at the digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation.

“Cutting Russians off from internet access cuts them off from sources of independent news and the ability to organize anti-war protests. Don’t do Putin’s dirty work for him,” Eva said.