Russia’s great firewall: is it meant to keep information in – or out?

Vladimir Putin will soon sign the 'sovereign internet' bill to allow greater monitoring of traffic. But what are its other consequences?

Earlier this year, US officials briefed reporters on an extraordinary operation: they claimed to have launched an offensive cyber-attack against Russia to protect the integrity of the country's midterm elections.

Government hackers from US Cyber Command had pre-emptively cut off the internet to a St Petersburg office building that houses the Internet Research Agency, better known as Russia's troll factory, to prevent the spread of misinformation on election day in November 2018, US newspapers reported.