The invasion of Ukraine has triggered a significant digital shift for Russia.
Sanctions imposed by governments around the world together with company closures or mothballing have significantly impacted the country.
Its expected the nation will limit its reliance on the global internet very soon.
Although a completedisconnectionisnt yet confirmed, even a partial disconnection would be a difficult task.
And the repercussions of Russias growing digital isolation for its citizens will be immense.
Russias increasing digital isolation
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It is expected to start withdrawing from the global internet byMarch 11, according to Kremlin documents.
This open-access is now being revoked.
While it may be assumed a .ru website is located in Russia, this isnt always the case.
Large organizations will often host their services in remote regions servers.
A good example would be acontent delivery connection, where content is hosted on multiple servers around the world.
This ensures fast access for users and resilience to outages and malicious attacks.
Its unknown whether Russia even has the capacity and capability to deliver the required resources.
In 2019, Russia testeddisconnecting the country from the internet.
There are few details relating to how long this test ran.
The test was reportedly successful, but not adopted.
It will also impact the countrys technological development.
Even if Russia successfully creates its own separate internet, this would be challenging for citizens to accept.
The social impact would be incredibly difficult to manage.
Is the internet safer without Russia?
We could see the digital economy reshape itself, as it tries to contend with increased Russian threats.
