Followers the outbreak of the Russo-Ukrainian war on the one hand, and the tight technological blockade on Russia on the other, the question arises as to whether or not Russia will complete its efforts to disconnect from the global Internet, which is taking root in the past few years. In May 2019 , Russia passed the Sovereign Internet Law that allows Russia to be isolated from the global network, a law that obligated all telecom companies to connect to the Internet through servers on Russian soil, and Russia announced in February 2021 its readiness to electronically separate from the world, against the background of its legal and technological readiness. To be independent from the international internet.
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| Sovereign Internet |
Multiple stimuli
There are many indicators that indicate Russia's readiness to separate from the global Internet, which can be summarized in the following points:
1- The escalation of American pressure :
“Leonard Lavid” (chairman of the Russian Committee for Information Technology) stressed that Western pressure on Russia is pushing it to think of additional ways to protect Russian sovereignty in cyberspace. These pressures were clearly demonstrated in the Russo-Ukrainian war.
Where the Russian Internet speed began to decline with the flow of Russian forces across the Ukrainian border, and it began with the slowdown of “Facebook” and “Twitter” before the Russian government banned them completely, then imposed restrictions on “Tik Tok” services, leading to the reduction of both “Apple” Dell, Microsoft and Oracle have operations in Russia.
Russian Internet users no longer have the ability to use the Amazon or Netflix platform, as well as web support services such as Airbnb or payment networks such as Visa and MasterCard; This deepens fears of a complete disconnect from the global Internet.
2 – The Russian elites are convinced of the necessity of secession:
In early March, a number of anonymous hackers leaked a number of Russian documents showing Russia’s intention to separate from the global Internet no later than March 11, 2022. The leaked documents indicated that Russia had begun its preparations Actively to disconnect from the global Internet, stressing the need to protect all servers on Russian territory.
Although that date has passed without achieving the desired goal, various analyzes have argued that this is nothing more than evidence of the acquisition of that idea on the mind of the Russian elite, which if it did not achieve it last March, it will necessarily achieve it in the next few months.
3- Dedication to the duality of the Internet globally:
The Russian-Ukrainian war, with its different technological consequences, has revived talk about the possibility of splitting the Internet into two different networks in the near future, a theory that crystallized in the past years due to China’s separation from the rest of the world digitally, and the talk of other countries such as Iran about their desire to separate from the global network .
This reinforced Kyiv's demand to completely disconnect Moscow from the global Internet, even asking the international non-profit organization "ICAN" (which oversees the Global System of Internet Domains) to effectively disconnect Russia from the Internet, so that email addresses stop working, and Russian users are unable to About login.
Although the organization rejected the Ukrainian request, this step almost met the Russian regime's desire to isolate its citizens from abroad, which was reflected in Moscow's successive assertions of its ability to disconnect from the global Internet if necessary.
4 - Russian-Chinese rapprochement :
In 2000, China launched the “Great Firewall of China” project to impose censorship on what Beijing sees as “harmful” search engines, and also imposed conditions on technology companies to operate in the country, including a map service.
Google, which offers a version for China, for example, and the country’s official bodies impose restrictions on electronic games, and citizens often use the “Baidu” search engine to access and search for information on the web, as the “Weibo” platform highlights ( Weibo) as an alternative to Facebook and Twitter, in addition to the Youku Tudou service as a local alternative to the YouTube platform.
In light of the Russian-Chinese rapprochement in the technical field in particular, and the Chinese support for Russia against the backdrop of the Russian-Ukrainian war in general, China may export this model to Russia, in which the latter may find an acceptable alternative that eases the impact of international sanctions.
5- Creating new institutional entities :
Following the economic sanctions and internal political turmoil caused by the Russo-Ukrainian war, independence from the Western technology industry has become more urgent than ever. With its isolation from Western technology suppliers, Russia is building an increasingly self-sufficient economy.
Last month, Russian President Vladimir Putin created a new Commission on Internet and Technological Sovereignty in Russia, and appointed Dmitriy Medvedev (former and current deputy head of the Russian Security Council) as its chair. According to the Moscow Times, the goal of this committee is to find alternatives to critical IT supplies that the Russian economy badly needs.
6 - Reliance on technological sovereignty :
The Russian National Coordination Center for Computer Incidents has repeatedly warned of the danger of increasing hacker attacks on Russian information resources, including vital information infrastructure, attacks that may aim to disrupt the work of important information resources and services for political purposes. misleading in the Russian information space to form a negative image of Russia in the eyes of the international community. Against this background, the Russo-Ukrainian war has led to more invocation of technological supremacy than ever, with the Kremlin violently suppressing domestic protests against the war, banning foreign news websites and platforms, designating Facebook and Instagram as “extremist” organizations, and governing censorship.
The Russian Internet, especially with the description of “YouTube” as a tool for the Western information war against Russia.
Counterindications:
Some Russian media have indicated that Moscow has the capabilities to break away from the global Internet; The Russian newspaper "Kommersant" confirmed that the Russian measures aimed at disconnecting from the global Internet have so far been limited to government websites only, and that Russia has already prepared the Internet infrastructure to face any external outage or cyber threats, and that it is preparing for various scenarios to ensure that Russian resources are available to citizens and maintain On the continuity of services and the control of electronic domain names.
This, in general, demonstrates the multiplicity of Russian efforts to prevent the interruption of global Internet services, at least in the foreseeable future.
However, despite this, there are different indicators that doubt Russia's ability to separate from the global Internet, and these indicators can be found as follows:
1 - Increasing internal resistance:
Despite the efforts of the Russian government to separate from the global network of the Internet, the internal situation indicates that Russia is not ready to switch to a local (DNS) system. This is evidenced by the resistance of Russian ISPs to government pressure to transfer their services, despite the threat of fines for non-compliance. On the other hand, human rights activists refuse to cut Russia off from the global Internet; Because it may increase the Kremlin's control over information, thus gaining the Russian government a new source of power, and may pave the way for completing the process of isolating the Russian people from the rest of the world.
2- The difference between the Russian and Chinese experiences:
Russia’s economic and technological dependence on the outside world is increasing, unlike China, which has tightened its stranglehold on the Internet.
There is no doubt about the novelty of the Russian attempt to build a sovereign Internet, especially since Moscow has become in the past years one of the most integrated countries in the global Internet, so that the international Internet service providers that withdrew from Russia did not cut off Internet services from the country completely, and all they did was reduce bandwidth; This slows down internet traffic as other service providers become increasingly congested.
And unlike China, where domestic internet companies have grown into giants over more than a decade, Russia does not have a homegrown internet or a similarly pioneering technology industry.
3- The suspension of raw material shipments :
Russian telecom companies can no longer access equipment and materials imported from “Nokia”, “Ericsson” and “Cisco”, which undermines the efforts of the Russian government in terms of disconnecting from the global Internet, especially after Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (the largest manufacturer of basic semiconductors) has suspended shipments to the country, prompting Yandex (the largest Russian Internet company) to warn that it may default on its debt due to the crisis; This means that the market for information technology, hardware and software on which Russia relies has been severely damaged at the present time, and may suffer more losses in the event of separation from the global Internet, especially with the multiple sanctions imposed on the Russian economy, the lack of components, and the difficulty of achieving technological sufficiency self in the short term.
4- Human brain drain :
Russia suffered from brain drain and human talent before its war against Ukraine. This year alone, tens of thousands of tech professionals have left the country, realizing that any foreign market other than the Russian market would pay better and unlock freedom without massive moral concessions.
Moscow has tried to postpone compulsory military service for workers in this field, and extended favorable credit lines to companies that could retain 85 percent or more of their workforce numbers in March, to no avail.
5- The slowdown in Chinese aid:
Chinese aid may be limited to the form of semiconductors, the supply of which has been greatly limited by US sanctions. Analyzes question the extent of China’s possible intervention to fill the technological gap faced by Russia to provide it with semiconductors that the local technology industry does not have the ability to produce, especially after US President Joe Biden warned Chinese companies that they will be subject to sanctions if they provide Russia with them, especially Those that rely on American components, but Chinese companies can still expand the Russian market without necessarily providing semiconductors and other devices.
Finally, following the Russo-Ukrainian war, Russia took additional steps to reduce access to Western services in order to control information circulated, tightened its censorship of local media institutions, and instituted legislation criminalizing “harmful” content. However, the notion of decoupling from the global Internet appears more likely to be a principle Russia is pursuing than policies that can be achieved in the short term at least.
It can be said that the Russian-Ukrainian war highlighted the need to localize social platforms, and move web hosting services and their business to Russian servers, so that the next few years will witness strenuous efforts that cast a shadow on the future of the global Internet.
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