A leading American Internet service provider, Cogent Communications, said it was severing relations with Russian customers on March 4, a move that gives Ukrainian officials another victory in their campaign to isolate Russia online. Cogent chief executive Dave Schaeffer said the company did not want to keep ordinary Russians off the Internet but did want to prevent the Russian government from using Cogent’s networks to launch cyberattacks or deliver propaganda targeting Ukraine at a time of war. “Our goal is not to hurt anyone. It’s just to not empower the Russian government to have another tool in their war chest,” Schaeffer said. Cogent, based in Washington (DC), is one of the world’s largest providers of what’s known as Internet backbone — roughly comparable to the interstate highway system, providing the primary conduit for data flows that local companies then route to individual domains. Schaeffer said Cogent’s networks carry about one-quarter of the world’s Internet traffic. Cogent has several dozen customers in Russia, with many of them, such as state-owned telecommunications giant Rostelecom, being close to the government. Russia, like most nations, is connected to the world by several backbone providers, but Cogent is among its largest. The company began terminating its Russian companies at noon March 4 but was doing so gradually. Some customers asked for a delay of up to several days while they found other Internet sources, Schaeffer said, and the company is trying to accommodate those requests.
