Putin’s Efforts to Dismantle Internet Designed to Prevent Formation of Horizontal Ties among Russians, Martynov Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 4 – Most criticism of Putin’s moves to block various parts of the Internet focus on how he is denying access to information, but a far more important reason he is doing this, Kirill Martyonov suggests, is that the Kremlin leader wants to “strip people of the sense that they are not alone” but rather members of groups other than those created by the state.

            This highlights an important but often neglected reality: Russians like people elsewhere are using the Internet not just to get information but to find others who share their views and thus are part of communities other than those defined as acceptable by the state (novayagazeta.eu/articles/2026/04/04/razrushenie-interneta-eto-popytka-otniat-u-liudei-chuvstvo-chto-oni-ne-odni).

            Because that is so and because the formation and growth of such groups would block Putin from achieving his atomization of Russian society, he is likely to continue to try to subvert the Internet in various ways even if he has to retreat in some areas because blocking the Internet hurts his goals and those of his business and military allies.