Russia

Abstract

The catchy term “internet sovereignty” refers to various practices of state authorities in internet governance, independent of whether that state is authoritarian or democratic. These practices can include expansive filtering and blocking of internet resources, localisation of data, and even physical infrastructural isolation from the global internet. The case of Russia can reveal much about the possibilities and limitations of such sovereignisation. The Russian government has gone beyond an interest in regulating data and content and expressed ambitions to make its national segment of the internet independent while also preserving connectivity to the world network. The author discusses various Russian measures according to the three facets of cyberspace alignment theory: the national securitisation of cyberspace; the territorialisation of information flows; and efforts to structure control of critical Internet resources in line with national borders. The chapter argues that there are many complications on the level of infrastructure and policy and compliance hinder the creation of an independent and sovereign Runet. In addition, there are contradictory goals of trying to centralise the management of Runet while making it more stable and resilient. Lastly, in practice the government focuses more on controlling content rather than controlling the traffic routing.