The more the Kremlin cements its control over the internet, the more it can potentially suppress dissent and control information and data flows at home. Notably, Russia’s domestic efforts to control the internet quite closely parallel its efforts overseas to shape information and to both weaponize the internet and undermine its global nature.Īs the world watches Putin’s moves in and around Ukraine, these developments-while of course not comparable to the possibility of large-scale armed conflict-are worthy of attention, given their impact on the Russian cyber and internet landscape more broadly.
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In no small part, this pattern stems from the fact that Russian state control of the internet differs from that in China: It relies less on technical measures and more on traditional, offline mechanisms of coercion such as harassment, intimidation, and vague and inconsistently enforced speech laws. This penchant persists despite Russian developments that impinge on both the internet ecosystem and human rights in the country-and which constitute broader cyber threats and efforts to undermine the global internet. While Moscow made headlines after throttling Twitter and coercing Google and Apple into censoring opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s election app last year, Western media coverage of internet repression and security threats still tends to focus on China. The spotlight quickly swiveled back to Beijing’s grip on online content and data-even though a Kremlin campaign continues to ratchet up pressure on US technology giants, and could soon create a disruptive playbook for other states. When Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law in 2019 allowing the state to isolate the internet within Russia in the event of a security incident, international media outlets extensively covered the development, with many (incorrectly) likening it to China’s Great Firewall.
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