Blog post: https://ooni.org/post/2023-russia-a-year-after-the-conflict/

As of today, last year, Russia started its military operation in Ukraine. This was followed by increased levels of internet censorship, as Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in Russia started blocking access to several news media websites. In early March 2022, OONI published a report documenting these blocks, as well as the blocking of a site (200rf.com) that shares information about captured and killed Russian soldiers in Ukraine. OONI also reported that Russian ISPs started throttling access to Twitter on 26th February 2022, and switched to blocking it by 4th March 2022 – at which point, they also started blocking access to Facebook.

Information controls are known to occur during conflicts, and the increased censorship events in Russia suggest an attempt to control the narrative surrounding the conflict in Ukraine. But has internet censorship changed in Russia over the last year?

In this report, we attempt to answer this question through the analysis of OONI measurements collected from Russia between January 2022 to February 2023. We supplement our findings with information from relevant legal analysis and desk research provided by Roskomsvoboda.