Putin signs bill for ‘sovereign Russian internet’

Russian President Putin has signed a bill making an “independent Russian internet” mandatory. The country does not want it to be dependent on other countries for the functioning of the internet. Traffic must go through the telecom regulator.

Although the law has now been signed, the technology to decouple the country from the rest of the world is not yet ready. A test of the autonomous ‘Runet’ has yet to take place, but no date has yet been set. The Financial Times writes that that should happen sometime later this year. All internet providers in the country participate.

Russian senators introduced the bill in December 2018. The call for an autonomous Russian internet would have arisen not only from the desire for autonomy, but also from the felt need to defend the country; there is a certain fear that foreign powers could cut off Russia from the rest of the internet.

All Internet traffic from the Runet must go through the nodes of Roskomnadzor, the Russian federal telecom authority. Critics fear the measure is a disguised plan to make internet censorship easier for Russian authorities. The country has been trying to block various websites and services for some time, which is not always successful. Just over half of Russians are said to be against the law.

The Russian Court of Audit gives a negative advice on the law, because its implementation leads to costs that are not included in the government budget. The cost of an autonomous Runet is estimated at 20 billion rubles, or 270 million euros.