Russia Completes Test to Disconnect from the Global Internet for 24 Hours

Earlier, Landian.news  reported on Russia's plan to conduct tests in certain regions to disconnect from the international internet. This involved testing the backbone network to completely sever connections to the international internet, restricting users to only access network infrastructure within Russia.

The latest update reveals that the internet disconnection test was successfully completed on December 7, 2024. The disconnection lasted for 24 hours, primarily affecting remote regions of Russia such as the Chechen Republic, the Republic of Dagestan, and the Republic of Ingushetia.

During the test, as the upstream backbone network was disconnected from the international internet, users in the aforementioned republics were unable to access many international services, and some domestic services within Russia were also inaccessible.

Affected services included Google search, YouTube, WhatsApp, and Telegram. Russia's Yandex search engine was also not functioning properly, which might have been part of the test objective, considering domestic services should not be experiencing access issues.

Additionally, various institutions tested and compiled data on VPN software during the test period. The results showed that most VPN services were either unable to connect or, once connected, could not access the mentioned international services, aligning with one of the test's objectives.

The Russian Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology, and Mass Media (Roskomnadzor) stated that the goal of this "sovereign internet" test was to assess whether Russia's network infrastructure could maintain the operation of key foreign and domestic services in the face of external deliberate interference.

Moreover, the technology used in the test could quickly sever connections to the international internet if necessary, thereby halting the operation of international services in Russia, with instant messaging tools like Telegram being a prime example.

Roskomnadzor had previously ordered ISPs to block many international services, including but not limited to domain registrar GoDaddy, cloud computing platform AWS, and server provider HostGator. The agency claims that these foreign service providers host information on their servers that may not always prevent unauthorized access, thus endangering the confidentiality of user data and business security.