The degrading treatment of Ukraine’s internet
And how the Ukrainians are responding
DEGRADING AND ideally destroying your opponents’ ability to communicate are elementary military tactics. And, in its war on Ukraine, Russia has certainly attempted to do this. These days, closing down communications focuses on the enemy’s internet capabilities. So it is not surprising that analyses by NetBlocks, a firm in London that monitors internet activity, suggest that the number of devices connected to Ukraine’s internet has fallen by nearly a quarter since Russia’s onslaught began. Alp Toker, NetBlocks’ founder, describes that loss as striking. But it could be a lot worse, for it means that most Ukrainians are still online. What is going on?
This article appeared in the Science & technology section of the print edition under the headline “Dealing with degradation”
From the March 26th 2022 edition
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