A digital iron curtain in Russia?
President Vladimir Putin signed a law June 24 that could spell the end of internet freedom in Russia. On the face of it, the law would simply push a new state-controlled app that Russians would need to use for all public services. But it may eventually lead to what Mr. Putin calls “a national messenger.” That may then allow the government to ban all private internet communications, creating a digital iron curtain.
As the war in Ukraine continues to go badly for Mr. Putin, he increasingly seeks to restrict independent news of the conflict, especially news of high troop losses. Last year, he throttled access to YouTube after already banning Facebook, Instagram, and X. With the new platform, he may soon block Russia’s leading messaging services, WhatsApp and Telegram. The new app, which may be called Max, will be preinstalled on all new smartphones and tablets sold in Russia starting in September.
Such a censorship tactic, similar to that used in China, stands in stark contrast to freedom of speech and media in Ukraine. When the war started in 2022, the government in Kyiv consolidated television coverage to control information about the war. But Ukrainians have since soured on this source and turned to independent news outlets. According to a 2024 survey conducted by the Inmind Agency, 84% of Ukrainians rely on news primarily through social media.
“For Ukrainians, freedom is more important than stability; for Russians, stability is more important than freedom. The war is all about this difference,” wrote Ukrainian novelist Andrey Kurkov in The Guardian this year.
“Ours is a rare case in modern times of a country at war not imposing blanket censorship on the press or mass media. Political freedoms remain and Ukrainian culture is experiencing an active period of development as cultural figures realise that culture is a vital front in this war.”
Many Russians have fought back against Mr. Putin’s attempt to force them to live in an information bubble of his design. “Internet censorship has ... created a movement in the Russian civic sector, as well as among developers abroad, to create grassroots tech initiatives that would oppose the shutdowns and blocking,” wrote Daria Dergacheva, a media specialist at the University of Bremen in Germany, in Global Voices.
In Ukraine, the war may be won as much by truth-telling as by weapons. “Live not by lies,” advised the late Russian dissident Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn a half-century ago.
