The war between Russia and Ukraine, which has been going on for almost a week, has gone beyond arms. In particular, Ukraine is trying to hit Russia not only militarily, but also in other sectors, in the face of Russia’s unjust occupation. Now, there has been a new development regarding this. Propagating propaganda, Ukraine wants Russia to be deleted from the internet. Yes, you heard right, Ukraine wants to delete Russia from the internet.
Ukraine sent an email to international internet regulators, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and RIPE NCC. In this e-mail by Mykhailo Fedorov, all domain names registered in Russia are requested to be disabled. Fedorov, who also wants DNS regulation specific to Russia, thinks that Russia’s internet propaganda can only be prevented in this way. By the way, we are aware that the name Mykhailo Fedorov sounds familiar. Fedorov, who serves as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Ukraine Digital Transformation Office, recently sent a letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook, and managed to stop Apple’s sales in Russia.
Can Ukraine delete Russia from internet?
When we look at the details in the e-mail of the Ukrainian official; We see that Russia is trying to shut down all Russia-based websites and restrict the country’s internet access, citing reasons such as spreading false information, justifying the invasion, carrying out a cyber-attack and cornering Ukraine. In this context, we can say that Ukraine is right in its own way. So is such a thing possible? Can Ukraine delete Russia from the internet?
To be frank, the answer to this question is technically yes. Both ICANN and RIPE NCC can disable Russian-based websites and turn off root servers. But is such a thing done? That doesn’t seem possible. RIPE NCC officials, who made statements on the subject, announced that such a thing would hit the internet access of Russian civilians. Such a move to industry resources would affect ordinary Russians rather than the Russian government, which is hardly plausible. Sources acknowledge Russia’s injustice, but say that the Russian people should be excluded from this situation. According to them, steps should be taken to stop Russia, but these steps should not be to disconnect Russia from the internet. ICANN, on the other hand, did not make any press release on the subject.