Russia's disconnection from the global Internet seems to be in full swing: the Kremlin is increasingly restricting access and blocking more and more VPN networks. "Soon the Internet in Russia will be like that of North Korea."
Nadya and Dmitry are Russians. Both left their homeland after Russia began a full-scale war against Ukraine and moved to Berlin. They told German public broadcaster ARD that their parents still live in Russia, but that keeping in touch with them was becoming increasingly difficult. Until now, they have mainly used WhatsApp and Telegram to send short messages, phone calls or video calls. But both channels are now blocked or restricted in Russia. Their parents are too old to technically bypass the blockades.
The leadership in Moscow clearly does not want the separated families to stay in touch, says Nadia, who works as a producer for media projects in Germany. She and Dmitry have started communicating with their parents via email, they tell ARD.
The legal basis was created years ago
The question is: what exactly is happening to digital Russia right now? One thing is clear: the blocking of messenger services and the restriction of mobile Internet have also caused discontent in the country itself.
At the end of 2019, the law on the so-called "sovereign Internet" came into force in Russia - a state strategy to create an independent national network ("RuNet"), which can function completely independently if it is disconnected from the global Internet. Officially, this is supposed to protect Russia from external threats and cyberattacks. But from the very beginning, critics feared that the Kremlin wanted to gain complete control over all information on the network, ARD points out.
The law created the legal framework for centralized management of the Internet in Russia. With the beginning of the aggressive war against Ukraine, this became visible to everyone: exiled media were blocked, and undesirable websites were closed. Facebook and Instagram were classified as – – and their services were largely banned or blocked. WhatsApp was completely blocked, and the Telegram messenger was restricted.
The possibility of completely blocking the Telegram messenger application, which is popular in Russia, is currently being discussed. Moreover, it was created by a programmer originally from Russia, and is used mainly by politicians, propagandists, influential figures close to the Kremlin, as well as by soldiers on the front in Ukraine. The Kremlin's official position is that the messenger violates Russian laws and if it is not brought into line with them, the service should be banned.
Support from China and Iran
As a result, anyone in Russia who is not technically able to bypass the blocking of the digital services in question and the media outlets banned in Russia receives almost exclusively information loyal to the Kremlin. "Russia is trying by all means to separate the country from the global network", says Ivan Kolpakov, editor-in-chief of the exiled media outlet "Meduza".
Most of the approximately 12 million users of "Meduza" still live in Russia - the media outlet is blocked there and people can only access the publication's content through workarounds. However, the political leadership in Moscow is doing everything possible to block these access methods as well, in order to isolate the country from independent information from the outside. In this regard, Ivan Kolpakov points out that in recent years, Russian technology experts have learned, including with the help of China and Iran, how to develop "cyber-authoritarian technologies".
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First the regions, then the big cities
In many regions, mobile internet has been and continues to be shut down since last year. During this time, the authorities also checked whether, despite the shutdown of the internet, links leading to content from the so-called "white lists" - state-approved websites of institutions such as banks, government departments, hospitals or the police - were still functioning. In this way, they tested the reliability of "RuNet".
However, what happens outside the big cities rarely attracts much attention in Russia. It was only when mobile internet was shut down in the capital Moscow and St. Petersburg this year that Russians' indignation took on greater proportions. "Soon the Russian internet will resemble that of North Korea," a young Russian woman is quoted as saying.
In February this year, Russian internal affairs agencies were given the power to block mobile connections and the internet by law. The Kremlin says the disruptions are being carried out for security reasons - to prevent Ukrainian drone attacks or possible assassination attempts.
Low trust in MAX
Alongside the blockades, restrictions and bans, the Russian state-backed MAX mobile app hit the market last year. According to the advertising, it is absolutely universal: for digital administrative services, banking transactions, business conversations, daily news from state media and chat groups.
University students are forced to use MAX, the same applies to school chats. According to some reports, employees of state organizations have also been forced to install MAX.
Many people fear that in the future the authorities may only be accessible through MAX. Some Russians are so skeptical of the app that they buy a second mobile phone to install it on. They fear that the state could use it to spy on them completely.
Agitation against VPNs
In many authoritarian countries, people use VPNs to access blocked websites. The number of users using such side routes has been growing for years in Russia as well. At the same time, Russia has been blocking more and more VPNs in the country - hundreds of them this year alone. Roskomnadzor - the Russian telecommunications regulator - is responsible for this. Many critics call it simply a "censorship body". Advertising and distribution of VPNs has been sanctioned since September last year.
Videos on the Internet show students in Irkutsk being taught how "dangerous" VPN use is during a course. Valery Fadeev, chairman of the Russian Human Rights Council, recently commented that people who use VPNs are not looking for objective news, but for the enemy's point of view. "There is something unhealthy, unnatural in this," he said.
And for older people, like the parents of Nadya, a Russian woman who fled to Berlin, it is often too complicated to work with a VPN. Nadya and Dmitry hope that people in Russia will dare to express their discontent out loud.
But it is also dangerous - thousands of critics of the regime are in prison. So everything could get even worse, says Nadya. "In Russia you never know what can happen next."