Russia’s Networked Authoritarianism in Ukraine’s Occupied Territories during the Full-Scale Invasion: Control and Resilience

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has seen the Kremlin mixing its usual external cyber warfare tactics with internet control and information manipulation approaches inspired by its internal networked authoritarian regime. I argue that Russia’s interventions in the information spaces and telecommunications infrastructure in temporarily occupied Ukrainian territories demand greater scrutiny from the domains of internet governance and cyber warfare studies alike. This analysis of the ‘networked authoritarian’ creep of Russia’s censorship and surveillance tactics beyond its borders as a part of its expanding war arsenal enables a comprehensive assessment of the impacts of both kinetic attacks on communications infrastructure and informational attacks on the digital communication space in Ukraine. The analysis also summarises Ukraine’s observed capability for resistance and resilience in the face of Russia’s networked authoritarianism in the context of the war and discusses the implications and lessons from the events of the full-scale invasion for the future rebuilding of Ukraine and for the broader international policymaking community.