Russia's parliament votes to unplug internet from world

The Russian Duma has given its final approval to a bill creating a domestic internet. Lawmakers say it aims to protect Russia from cyber threats — but the law has sparked protest: Critics worry it will allow censorship.

Russian Duma deputies on Tuesday overwhelmingly supported a bill allowing Russia to create its own autonomous internet. The law will create an independent infrastructure for the Russian internet, or "Runet," which will essentially allow Russia to pull up its virtual drawbridges in case of attack.

A total of 307 lawmakers voted in favor of the law, while only 68 voted against it. In the coming days it will likely be approved by the upper house of parliament — the Federation Council — and signed into law by Russian President Vladimir Putin. It will then come into force on November 1, 2019.

The law has consistently received near unanimous backing from Duma deputies. Its authors say Russia's national security is at stake. The project will allow the domestic internet to continue working even when it is disconnected from non-Russian root servers. That means that the country would be prepared should other countries attempt to cut Russia off from the internet.

"If we see that others have the technical capabilities to carry out attacks on the Russian internet then we must have the technical capability to resist those attacks," Andrei Klishas, one of the authors of the law, told DW ahead of the vote. Klishas, a member of the Federation Council, makes no secret of where the authors of the law think the attacks on "Runet" might come from: "We have no doubt that the United States is technically able to turn off the internet wherever they deem it necessary to do so."

The bill itself explicitly states that it aims to counter "the aggressive character of the US strategy on national cybersecurity," a 2018 document that categorizes Russia as one of Washington's "strategic adversaries."