Russia has ‘successfully tested’ unplugging itself from the internet

Russia's President Vladimir Putin gestures while speaking to Russian journalists after BRICS Business Council and the New Development Bank, in Brasilia, Brazil, Thursday, Nov. 14, 2019. (Alexei Druzhinin, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP) — The results of the test will now be shared with President Putin (Alexei Druzhinin, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)

Russia has put into action a plan to disconnected itself from the global internet and set up a domestic alternative instead.

According to a report from the BBC, Russia’s Ministry of Communications announced it successfully tested a countrywide alternative to the internet.

The government said that regular Russian browsers didn’t notice any changes to their typical web usage while the domestic web was in place.

The results of the test will be presented to President Vladimir Putin, who has recently signed a law forcing all smartphones and computers sold in the country to come with Russian software pre-installed.

Experts have said that Russia’s wirthdrawl from the global internet – echoing the likes of heavily-censored China – is a backwards step.

‘Sadly, the Russian direction of travel is just another step in the increasing breaking-up of the internet,’ Prof Alan Woodward, a computer scientist at the University of Surrey, told the BBC.

‘Increasingly, authoritarian countries which want to control what citizens see are looking at what Iran and China have already done.

‘It means people will not have access to dialogue about what is going on in their own country, they will be kept within their own bubble.’

Group of hooded hackers shining through a digital russian flag cybersecurity concept — Russia is often accused of orchestrating international cybersecurity incidents (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

A specific date for Russia’s ultimate departure from the web hasn’t been given yet. But the country maintains that separating itself will help protect it from its enemies.

‘The calls to increase pressure on our country being made in the West oblige us to think about additional ways to protect Russian sovereignty in cyberspace,’ said Leonid Levin, the chairman of a Russian committee on information technology, earlier this year.

‘Russia’s disconnection from the world wide web is one possible scenario amid the escalation of international tensions.’

Last year, Russia brought in the Digital Economy National Program which aims to protect the country’s online infrastructure even if other countries were able to cut it off.

Vladimir Putin, meanwhile, is still using a computer running the Windows XP operating system from 2001.

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