MOSCOW

Russia’s Kremlin is establishing its own digital ecosystem that is disconnected from the Western network in an economic transformation triggered by the war in Ukraine and related Western sanctions.

Russia’s mass media surveillance agency, Roskomnadzor, has largely centralized control over the country’s internet traffic through regulations, as the country grapples with rising economic tensions led by Western sanctions spilling over onto its digital sphere.

Russian internet users have faced major changes after authorities listed Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, as a terrorist and extremist organization in 2022.

Platforms, including the US-based social media company X and the self-broadcasting service YouTube, are banned in Russia, prompting millions of users to flock to homegrown alternatives.

Vkontakte, also called VK, serves millions of users in the country as its de facto Facebook, while Telegram filled the void left by the departure of Western chat apps, enjoying record growth figures.

In August last year, the Kremlin restricted platforms like Telegram and the Meta-owned WhatsApp, prompting users to switch to the Russian domestic app Max. The app was developed by VK and launched just months before the restrictions on Western chat applications were put in place, done so on the basis of “failing to share information with law enforcement in fraud and terrorism cases,” according to a report by The Guardian.

The domestic app Max reportedly served over 70 million users since its launch.

Russia’s digital transformation is not a mere platform change but clear evidence of Moscow’s creeping surveillance, whereby the state collects and stores user data on Russian servers such as RuStore or other domestic data centers, experts say.

In 2019, Russia ramped up its efforts to control the internet by introducing deep packet inspection (DPI) under the Sovereign Internet Law, using a system called “technical measures for threat protection” or TSPU.

Roskomnadzor used this tool to detect and throttle or block internet bandwidth by analyzing data packets based on their contents. YouTube was rendered unusable with the implementation of TSPU if not outright banned in the first place.

Despite the rapidly rising demand for virtual private network (VPN) services after the numerous bans, Russia declared the advertising of VPN services a criminal offense with regulations introduced in 2024 and 2025, and it additionally imposed further restrictions on popular VPN protocols.

The authorities are working on creating a white list of state-approved VPN services that are willing to share user data with Moscow. Some reports in the country’s domestic press suggest that these steps are being taken to turn Russia’s internet into a walled garden, similar to China’s Great Firewall model.

Russia is also developing its sovereign network, RuNet, designed to function even if fully disconnected from the global internet.

Steps include national DNS servers and requiring public institutions and critical infrastructure to use only Russian software.

The government plans to use the e-government portal Gosuslugi as a digital identity system for internet access. New regulations banning the sale of SIM cards without passport verification and requiring major social media accounts to register with the state system will effectively eliminate any potential of anonymity on the internet.

Moscow gives incentives to domestic platforms, including VK Video and RuTube, the most popular alternatives to YouTube in the nation, while content creators on these domestic platforms and ads are shown to millions to promote switching to Russian social media networks.

However, Russia’s RuNet contends with hardware shortages due to Western sanctions.

Western chipmaker and server manufacturers such as Intel, AMD, and Cisco have pulled out of the Russian market, hindering data center capacity expansion efforts.

Russia has since resorted to Chinese suppliers and parallel imports to fill the gap, but Moscow is already behind targets in areas that require high processing power, including 5G infrastructure and artificial intelligence.

Over the past four years, Russia has gradually transformed its internet structure into a more controlled model, while users seeking to maintain their connection to the rest of the world continue to seek alternative access methods like VPNs, despite Moscow’s active efforts to discourage the use of these services through legal means.

*Writing by Emir Yildirim