Russia has been severely cracking down on Internet access for its population over the past few months. This is a continuation of a trend of information control that Russia has been using for years. Russia has long been banning hundreds of sites, including independent media, human rights groups, and even major global platforms, and trying to create a sovereign internet to isolate its domestic internet from global networks, all under the pretext of national security. The Kremlin’s goal with internet restrictions is to essentially control what the Russian people see, say, and believe.
The current restrictions are the continuation of this information control. The Kremlin has instituted widespread internet shutdowns and blockages across Russia, claiming that this is in an effort to defend against Ukrainian drone attacks and “terrorist” communications from Ukraine. These outages, however, have even been occurring in Russia’s Far East and Siberia, regions further from the Ukrainian border than drones can reach. Some of Russia’s border regions have even used Telegram channels in the past as methods to warn civilians about drone attacks, something that is made near impossible due to the blockages.
Over the past few months, the Kremlin has expanded surveillance to monitor nearly all online traffic, targeting virtual private networks (VPNs) and messaging apps such as WhatsApp and Telegram, the most popular forms of online communication in Russia. Instead, the government is trying to force people to use the “state messenger” Max, but many Russians are refusing, as it clearly functions as spyware, reading all data from users’ phones and transmitting it to intelligence agencies. These restrictions are occurring as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine drags on in its fifth year, and frustration inside Russia is growing. Support for the war appears to be falling, and the economy is weakening, further exacerbated by these internet restrictions. Even some elites are starting to push back.
These blockages have received backlash from various sectors of Russian society, including business, political, and military leaders. Most Russians rely on the internet for their daily lives and work, meaning the shutdowns are affecting Russia’s economy at a time when it is already struggling due to Moscow’s war against Ukraine. Many supporters of Russia’s war against Ukraine, including many pro-war bloggers, have criticized these outages, as they use the internet and Telegram to report on the war and communicate.
The Kremlin is also providing Russia’s security services more power to monitor, censor, and shut down dissent online. At the end of February, Putin signed a law obligating Russian operators to block any communication when ordered by the Federal Security Service (FSB). The Russian Communications Authority (RosKomNadZor) was granted legal means to direct and manage national internet traffic by an interagency committee formed by Russia’s Ministry of Digital Technologies, Communications Authority, and FSB. The FSB is seeking to gain full situational awareness of information security across as many organizations in Russia as possible, as the Russian state gains the power to control national internet traffic.
These internet restrictions are essentially about controlling what information people have access to. The goal is to undermine the population’s ability to think and act autonomously. In order to maintain support for its war of attrition, the Kremlin needs to continue to push its narratives onto the Russian people, and by controlling the internet, it is able to control what information Russians are able to access.
