Russia will restrict internet access in several regions, including Moscow, during its May 9 celebrations of this year’s victory, because the Kremlin imposes increasingly stimulated controls on its population.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told journalists on Wednesday that mobile internet restrictions would be in place in several regions while foreign leaders are in Moscow for celebrations marking the surrender of Nazi Germany during the Second World War.
Peskov said the restrictions are due to the fact that Russia has “dangerous neighbors”.
“These are not disturbances, but restrictions for obvious reasons,” he said. “We want the glorious day of victory to be celebrated at the appropriate level.”
Meduza of independent Russian media Meduza said that restrictions had already been implemented in certain regions, the Moscow residents encountered problems of access to the phone and the Internet since May 5.
Victory day celebrations are a major propaganda event for Russian President Vladimir Putin. World leaders, notably Xi Jinping in China and Luiz Inácio Lula Da Silva from Brazil, will attend this year’s event.
Putin also called for a three-day ceasefire with Ukraine during the weekend of the victory day, that the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, rejected, describing the offer as a “blow”.
From the perspective of May 9, Ukraine has intensified its drone strike campaign against Russia, hitting Moscow with consecutive nights of attacks that have closed its international airports.
Russian association of tour operators said in a press release On Wednesday, at least 350 flights were affected by the threat of drone strikes.
Zelenskyy suggested that those who travel to the country are not safe, pointing out that “our position is very simple for all countries going to Russia on May 9: we cannot be held responsible for what is happening in the territory of the Russian Federation”.
Internet access cuts
In the wake of its invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Russia imposed restrictions on the Internet on its population.
As part of its “sovereign internet” project, and in order to monitor online spaces and access to information more closely, Russia has limited global Internet access, as well as the VPN services used to bypass national controls.
Other restrictions have already been imposed in the Russian areas targeted by Ukrainian drone strikes, the Kommersant Russian point of sale pointing that restrictions had been set up in the city of Rostov on April 25.
Kommersant suggested that this was linked to the concerns that mobile internet networks could be used to direct drone attacks.
“The Russian authorities will probably continue to disconnect large regions of russia mobile internet networks during Ukrainian long -term strikes,” the Washington Institute, based in DC, Washington wrote on Wednesday.
He said he would do this “to continue testing the sovereign internet system and, secondarily, to prevent Russians from immediately circulating reports, images and images of the results of these Ukrainian strikes”.
