Russia

The Russian Federation’s cyber diplomacy has been guided by two contradictory priorities: building a closed, sovereign internet, and exploiting the open and decentralized World Wide Web. The Kremlin seeks a Janus-like vision for the future of the internet that maximizes the openness of its potential adversaries’ internet and firewalls its own internet to ensure state control, surveillance and censorship. The goal is to adopt digital technologies of the modern world without internalizing the liberal principles, values and norms the West might associate with those technologies. President Putin’s cyber objectives have led the Kremlin to undermine the current multi-stakeholder approach to internet governance and pursue a number of diplomatic initiatives at the United Nations. To promote alternative cyber diplomacy initiatives, Moscow expects to find support from non-Western powers and has actively collaborated with BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and China. On the other hand, Moscow pursues offensive cyber activities like disinformation and hacking, in support of its efforts to overturn the liberal world order and to weaken the influence of Western powers. The concept of information confrontation detailed here includes the employment of offensive cyber capabilities and the utilization of online information operations for strategic purposes.