Russia, Blocked From the Global Internet, Plunges Into Digital Isolation

Even as President Vladimir Putin tightened his grip on Russian society over the past 22 years, small pockets of independent information and political expression remained online. Any remnants of that are now gone. As President Putin has waged war on Ukraine, a digital barricade went up between Russia and the world. Both Russian authorities and multinational internet companies built the wall with breathtaking speed. And the moves have ruptured an open internet that was once seen as helping to integrate Russia into the global community. The actions have turned Russia into a walled-off digital state akin to China and Iran, which tightly control the internet and censor foreign websites and dissent. Russia’s cleaving off is a defeat for the once-held Western belief that the internet is a tool for democracy that would lead authoritarian countries to open.