Russia may cut itself off from world internet and US is concerned that Russian web would resemble China’s Great Firewall

Officials fear that as the Kremlin cracks down on the internet, Russian will be cut off from the rest of the world.

While the real conflict in Ukraine rages on, Russia is waging an online information war.

The Russian internet is a critical battleground in the Kremlin’s online campaign.

Several companies in Russia have shut down their online and offline activities.

Meanwhile, officials in the Kremlin, led by President Vladimir Putin, have banned access to several platforms that have not yet stopped operating in Russia.

State officials have banned Instagram, which is three times as popular in Russia as Facebook.

The Kremlin’s aspirations to cut Russia off from the rest of the world’s internet predate Ukraine’s incursion.

Russia approved the Sovereign Internet Law in 2019, which allows the Kremlin to restrict the internet by redirecting traffic through Russian servers.

The Russian government declared the internet to be a national security danger in 2021.

Russia’s deputy digital minister, Andrei Chernenko, urged Russian websites to use DNS servers located within Russia’s borders earlier this month.

As a result, internet operations in Russia are reliant on domestic gear, bolstering the government’s ability to censor material.

Russian people can avoid Russia’s stringent internet restrictions by using a Virtual Private Network (VPN).

A VPN hides your physical location, masks your IP address, and scrambles your internet history.

However, with Visa, Mastercard, and American Express ceasing operations in Russia, many residents may be unable to pay for web tools that will assist them in circumventing Russian censorship policies.

The Russians’ efforts to domesticate the internet are reminiscent of China’s Great Firewall programme.

China closely monitors the internet and imposes numerous limitations on international websites.

The Chinese government owns internet channels and grants citizens and enterprises access to them.

Web pages based or created outside of China are rarely visited by Chinese internet users.

With a score of 10 out of 100, FreedomHouse, a non-profit focused on measuring the level of freedom around the world, placed the Chinese internet as one of the least free in the world.

In comparison, the United States receives a 75 out of 100 for internet freedom.

China and Russia have fragmented the internet, leaving residents with just state-approved networks as their primary source of information.

“They want the ability to move to not one big global network but different networks where you can surveil your citizens more easily,” Karen Kornbluh, an expert on US-European diplomacy, told NBC News.

“In the longer term, Russia wants to be able to cut off access to Signal,” Kornbluh said.

The signal is an encrypted messaging software that journalists use to escape government monitoring and is now Russia’s fastest-growing app.

One of Russia’s state-controlled television networks, RT, has been chastised for promoting bogus excuses for the invasion of Ukraine, among other things.

By isolating the Russian internet, news organisations like RT may become the only source of information available to Russian citizens.

The internet’s splintering is the next step in Russia’s bigger campaign to suppress free speech.

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