Putin's advisor believes that there is a possibility that Russia will be cut off from the 'world Internet'
The President’s advisor on the Internet, German Klimenko, stated in an interview with RT that Russia must be prepared in case it is cut off from the “world Internet”.
"Our Western partners cut off the Crimea from Google and Microsoft services and domain owners who live in the Crimea lost all they had worked for. Our country should be prepared for a scenario where it is cut off from the world Internet," Klimenko said.
He added that there is a high probability that Russia's relations with the West will continue to deteriorate. Due to this, Russia’s objective should be, according to Klimenko, "the adjustment of the Russian segment of the Internet" so as to be prepared in case Russia is actually cut off from the “world Internet”.
"It is very important that the e-mail, telegraph, telephone and social networks continue to work in Russia. And the way for this to happen is critical infrastructure that would include a copy of the domain zone and all these must be located on our territory, so no one could turn it off," Klimenko said.
In August 2016 the Kommersant newspaper reported that the Coordination Center (CC) of the national domain, managing the domains .ru and .rf may be transferred under the control of government agencies. The Vedomosti newspaper also wrote that the Ministry of Communications and Mass Media of the Russian Federation proposes to add to the law "on communication" an article on the regulation of the Russian segment of the Internet. However, the head of the ministry publically denied this.
After the US and the EU introduced sanctions against the Crimea in 2014, large companies such as Amazon, eBay, domain name registrar Go Daddy and the payment system PayPal stopped working. On the peninsula the App Store digital distribution platform terminated its service and HP and Dell have ceased to supply their products to the territory of the Crimea.