Given the ongoing cyber conflict between Russia and Western countries, is it technically possible for Western governments or internet organizations to disconnect Russia from the global internet? What parts of the internet's infrastructure would have to be controlled for that to work, and could Russian networks route around the disruption?
3 Answers
In practice, Russia’s own government has more influence over ordinary users’ access than Western organizations do. It can block websites, throttle services, filter traffic, and pressure local internet providers. A foreign attempt to disconnect the country would likely be partial and disruptive, while giving authorities another reason to tighten domestic censorship.
Russia can be isolated to some extent by cutting or restricting international transit providers, submarine cable connections, peering arrangements, and access to foreign services. However, that would require cooperation from many independent companies and countries, and it still would not necessarily stop every connection. Domestic services and alternative routes could continue operating.
A complete cutoff would be extremely difficult. The internet is decentralized, and traffic can often be rerouted through alternate providers, neighboring countries, satellite links, private networks, or new routing arrangements. International organizations control important naming and coordination systems, but they do not have a single switch that can shut down a country’s entire internet access.
So even disrupting major backbone connections would probably create outages rather than guarantee a permanent, nationwide disconnection.