ISLAMABAD – The Russian government has been working to produce a sovereigninternet to disconnect from the rest of the world. The idea was to limitthe entire population of Russia to a countrywide intranet that isrestricted from accessing the global internet.

They have now successfully tested the idea, disconnecting the country fromthe rest of the world for security and independence.

The Russian government hasn’t provided any technical details on how theymade it possible, but they did reveal testing different scenarios, one ofwhich involved a foreign cyberattack.

However, in simple words, the initiative restricts access points in theRussian Internet (RuNet) that allow connection with the global internet.All traffic trying to access the external internet is rerouted to Russiancounterparts of the same website. Social media website VK, for example, isa Russain alternative for Facebook.

Russian Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and telecommunication companieswill need to limit RuNet to the country’s borders and the government willhave complete surveillance over it.

Alexei Sokolov, deputy head of the Ministry of Digital Development,Communications and Mass Media said:

It turned out that, in general, that both authorities and telecom operatorsare ready to effectively respond to possible risks and threats and ensurethe functioning of the Internet and the unified telecommunication networkin Russia.

He added that the test results will be presented to President VladimirPutin next year.