Digitally isolated Russia planning to sever all ties from the internet

Russia has begun active preparations to disconnect from the global internet and create its own private Internet such as the one present in China. 

Belarusian news service agency based in Poland, Nexta, put out a purported document from Russia, which outlines a policy demanding all Russian websites to be switched to the Russian Domain Name System (DNS) service. 

#Russia began active preparations for disconnection from the global Internet

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. pic.twitter.com/wOCdRqOJej

— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) March 6, 2022

By forcing all websites to go through the Russian DNS, the citizens of the country will now only be able to access websites recognised by the Russian DNS.   

However, Russian laws have for a long time required its Local Internet Service providers to send all traffic through servers managed by the country’s telecommunications regulator, the Roskomnadzor. 

Currently, major internet providers in Russia such as Cogent and Lumen suspended their services in the country. 

Also read: Ukraine war: Here's every tech service banned or suspended in Russia

While on one hand, multinational internet providers have blocked the internet to Russia, the Russian authorities have also made similar moves to block most social media sites from the country. The country has already been strict in terms of its online moderation, and with the ongoing Ukraine war, the pockets of independent internet in Russia also seem to collapse. 

Russia announced last week that it has blocked Facebook, while Netflix, TikTok have suspended their services in the country. Many technology giants such as the likes of Oracle, Cisco, Samsung and Microsoft have suspended services or have pulled back on all services in Russia. Just yesterday, Twitter launched a dark web service to counter its ban in the country.  

Russia currently already possesses its internet, nicknamed RuNet. Way back in December 2019, Russia had conducted tests to unplug from the internet and replace it with RuNet. Back then, the Ministry of Communications of Russia said that the tests were a success and ordinary users did not notice any hindrances while using the network.