https://techmonitor.ai/policy/geopolitics/the-rise-of-russias-splinternet

Even before its invasion of Ukraine, independent media was a dying breed on Russia’s corner of the internet. All Russian-language news outlets judged to be spreading ‘fake news’ or showing ‘disrespect’ to the government risked being blacklisted by Roskomnadzor, the state censor. Foreign internet platforms, too, were subject to routine takedown requests by the agency: 123,000 were issued to Google, for example, between 2012 and 2021. Meanwhile, connections to individual parcels of news – a livestream depicting a protest in Moscow, perhaps, or a blog post by opposition leader Alexei Navalny – were routinely smothered or blocked.

The impression of Russia’s online landscape existing in some kind of parallel universe has only deepened since its invasion of Ukraine. Amid general condemnation at Putin’s ‘special operation,’ foreign tech platforms including Twitter and Facebook – companies that maintained a sliver of space where Russians could speak freely online – have now either voluntarily exited the country or been blocked by the state censor. EU sanctions have also seen Cogent Communications, one of its largest ISPs, announce their withdrawal from the Russian market, raising the prospect of the country’s internet being completely severed from the outside world.