Internet traffic in Kherson is rerouted through Russia
Internet routing data for a service provider in Kherson shows traffic flowing through Russian networks beginning in May, before fully switching in early June.
Internet traffic routed through:
Source: Kentik
A few weeks after capturing the southern Ukrainian port of Kherson, Russian soldiers arrived at the offices of local ISPs and ordered them to relinquish control of their networks.
“They came up to them and put guns to their heads and just said, ‘Do that,'” said Maxim Smelyanets, who owns an internet service provider that operates in the area and is based in Kyiv. “They did that step by step for every company.”
Russian authorities then rerouted mobile and internet data from Kherson through Russian networks, government and industry officials said. They blocked access to Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, as well as to Ukrainian news sites and other independent information sources. Then they shut down Ukrainian cellphone networks and forced residents of Kherson to use Russian cellphone providers instead.
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May 29th Kherson remained connected to the global internet even after Russian forces took control in March.
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June 1st Then the connection was closed. Russian authorities routed Kherson’s internet traffic through a state-controlled network in Crimea.
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June 5th Russia has only expanded network infrastructure and routed more traffic through Moscow to strengthen its control over the Kherson Internet.
Source: Kentik (traffic data) | Institute for the Study of War with Critical Threats Project of the American Enterprise Institute (occupied territory) Note: ISP locations and transit routes are approximate. The service area for a provider whose traffic routed through Crimea could not be verified and is not displayed.
What happened in Kherson is happening in other parts of Russian-occupied Ukraine. After more than five months of war, Russia controls large parts of eastern and southern Ukraine. Bombings have leveled towns and villages; civilians were arrested, tortured and killed; and supplies of food and medicine are running low, according to witnesses interviewed by the New York Times and human rights groups. Ukrainians in these regions have access only to Russian state television and radio.
In order to end this control, Russia has also started to occupy the cyberspace of parts of these areas. This has cut off Ukrainians in Russian-held Kherson, Melitopol and Mariupol from the rest of the country, restricting access to news about the war and communication with loved ones. In some areas, the internet and cellphone networks have been shut down completely.
Limiting internet access is part of a Russian authoritarian playbook that is likely to be further replicated as they take more Ukrainian territory. Digital tactics have put these Ukrainian territories in the grip of a vast digital censorship and surveillance apparatus, with Russia being able to track internet traffic and digital communications, spread propaganda and manage which messages reach people.
“The first thing an occupier does when entering Ukrainian territory is to cut the networks,” said Stas Prybytko, head of mobile broadband development at Ukraine’s Ministry of Digital Transformation. “The goal is to limit people’s access to the internet and prevent them from communicating with their families in other cities and prevent them from receiving truthful information.”
Russia’s diversion and censorship of the Ukrainian internet has little historical precedent elsewhere in the world. Even after Beijing took more control of Hong Kong from 2019, the city’s internet hasn’t been subjected to the same kind of censorship controls as mainland China. And while Russia’s tactics can be circumvented — people use virtual private networks, or VPNs, that hide a user’s location and identity to bypass Internet blocks — they could be applied to future professions.
In Russian-controlled Ukraine, internet restrictions began with key infrastructure built years ago. In 2014, after Russia annexed Crimea, Ukraine’s strategic peninsula, a state-owned telecoms company built an undersea cable and other infrastructure across the Kerch Strait to reroute internet traffic from Crimea to Russia.
Data from Ukrainian networks is now being rerouted through Crimea and south through these cables, researchers said. On May 30, the traffic of Kherson-based Internet networks such as Skynet and Status Telecom suddenly went dark. Over the next few days, people’s internet connections were restored, but they went through a state-controlled Russian telecommunications company in Crimea, Miranda Media, according to Doug Madory, director of internet analytics at Kentik, a company that measures the performance of internet networks.
Russian forces are also destroying the infrastructure that connected the internet in the occupied territories to the rest of Ukraine and the global web, said Mykhailo Kononykhin, head of information technology and systems administrator at a provider that had about 10,000 customers in the Melitopol region. He added that Russian forces were also stealing equipment from Ukrainian internet providers to boost connections to Crimea, including laying more fiber optic cables.
A destroyed shopping mall in Kherson, Ukraine, where residents are being forced to use Russian cellphone networks. Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
In some Russian-held areas of Ukraine, digital censorship is even worse than inside Russia, government and industry officials say. In the Kherson and Donetsk regions, Google, YouTube and the messaging app Viber were blocked, internet operators said.
“We are seeing an occupation of the Ukrainian internet,” said Alp Toker, director of NetBlocks, a London-based internet surveillance service.
Konstantin Ryzhenko, a Ukrainian journalist in Kherson, said many Ukrainian websites and online banking services are inaccessible, as are social media services like Facebook and Instagram. VPNs have become essential for people to communicate and stay in touch, he said.
Russia requires Ukrainians there to have a passport in order to buy a SIM card with a Russian phone number, Ryzhenko said. That makes it easier for Russian troops to keep track of people using their mobile devices, including location and internet browsing.
“You buy the device that listens to your traffic, knows exactly who you are and accurately identifies everything you do on the internet,” he said.
Internet and cell phone networks were shut down in some occupied areas, leading to a digital blackout. According to the Ukrainian government, some Ukrainian Internet providers have sabotaged their own networks instead of handing them over to the Russians.
Anton Koval, who lived for 21 days in a village outside Kyiv that was occupied in February and March, said Russian soldiers went through the city shelling and destroying cellphone towers. Cut off from information and communication with the outside world, some residents became so desperate that they climbed rooftops and hills in search of connections.
“But the Russians were chasing people who were trying to climb high places,” Mr. Koval said in an interview. “When a close neighbor tried to climb a tree, they shot him in the leg.”
Beyond the occupied territories of Ukraine, the Internet was a central battlefield of the war. While Russia has imposed an outspoken censorship regime at home, Ukraine has used social media effectively to rally global support and share information on civilian deaths and other atrocities. Mobile apps warn Ukrainians of rocket attacks and provide information about the war.
By June, about 15 percent of Ukraine’s internet infrastructure across the country had been damaged or destroyed, according to the government. At least 11 percent of all cellular base stations, i.e. devices that connect cell phones to cellular networks, do not work due to damage or a lack of power supply.
By June, the war had destroyed or damaged about 15 percent of Ukraine’s Internet fabric, including these cables being repaired at Irpin, near Kyiv. Ivor Prickett for the New York Times
However, internet and mobile services have remained strong in many parts of Ukraine. Ukraine’s tech sector has been one of the few bright spots in an otherwise depleted economy. Telegram, the messaging and communication platform, has also remained available in many occupied territories.
More than 12,000 Internet Starlink terminals from SpaceX, the private rocket company controlled by Elon Musk, have added coverage, said Andrii Nabok, an official at the Digital Transformation Ministry trying to restore internet access in the country. A government loan program is being worked out to expedite repairs.
Where Ukrainian forces have regained control of occupied territories, restoring internet and cellphone service has been among the first tasks. Near the front lines, telecommunications technicians are escorted by soldiers, sometimes in the face of artillery fire. Mr Prybytko, who is overseeing some efforts to rebuild the network for the government, said telecom workers were the “hidden heroes” of the war.
The lack of proper internet or communication tools is only a small part of the misery in occupied territories without shortages of electricity, water and food. “We’re not talking about the internet or providing information to people, we’re talking about survival,” said Yuliia Rudanovska, who lives in Poland but has a family in Izyum that faced weeks of airstrikes by Russian forces.
Oleksandra Samoylova, who lives in Kharkiv in the northeast, said she has not been able to contact her grandmother in an occupied territory about 85 miles away since April. All that was heard of her were two messages that she was fine, from a neighbor who sent short messages after reaching a nearby village where there was a connection.
Ukrainian officials fear the disruption could worsen as Russia has promised to advance further into Ukraine. Government intelligence services are suggesting Russia is laying more fiber-optic cables to divert even more traffic in the future, Mr Nabok said.
To help people in these areas connect to the global internet, the Ukrainian government offers free access to certain VPN services. Ukrainian officials are also asking for donations for routers and other equipment to set up internet services in bomb shelters, including schools.
“The educational process should also continue in bomb shelters, so they need underground internet connections,” Mr. Prybytko said.