Technology and Security Policy: Moscow's Digital Offensive - Building Sovereignty in Cyberspace

Russia is pursuing a long-term policy that aims to build its cyber sovereignty. The law on a sovereign internet appeared in 2019, but the concrete plans were evident in 2014 and present among the security services as long-term aspirations even further back. The goals are strategic to escape what Russia sees as U.S. dominance in the cyber sphere and to increase control over information flows within the Russian segment of the internet. Russia has built up a capability to perform cyber operations over at least two decades, from relying on mercenary hackers and crude distributed denial of service attacks (DDoS) to employing its own specialists and utilising advanced malware. Russia's current bid for an international treaty on information security goes back to the late 1990s. Moscow aims to achieve a high degree of coordination for this policy across different government ministries, agencies and services as well as with parliament and the leading Russian internet companies.