How ICANN’s Neutral Stance Shapes the Russia‑Ukraine Cyber Conflict

In response to international sanctions, Russia migrated all domestic website domains to the .ru country‑code top‑level domain before the launch of Runet.

Last week, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov wrote to the non‑profit organization that oversees the Internet Domain Name System (DNS), the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), requesting that the core of Russia’s connection to the global Internet be cut off.

ICANN CEO Göran Marby explicitly refused, stating that the organization must remain neutral and support a global Internet, and that its mission does not include punitive actions, sanctions, or restricting access to any part of the Internet.

Although ICANN will not sever Russia’s DNS links, this does not mean Russia can access the Internet without limits.

The hacker collective known as Anonymous announced its involvement in the Ukraine‑Russia conflict, declaring a cyber‑war against Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Russian government.

Anonymous operates a Twitter account with 7.4 million followers, mobilising hackers worldwide to attack Russian targets.

Recently, hackers compromised the website of the Russian Space Research Institute, leaking files they claimed were stolen from Roscosmos and leaving a message urging focus away from Ukraine.

A massive DDoS attack also crippled the .ru top‑level domain, aiming to cut off access to all URLs ending in .ru, marking a new wave of hacker activity supporting Ukraine.

Russia has acknowledged that it is engaged in a cyber‑war with Ukraine. On 28 February, the Russian state channel RT reported that both its own site and the Kremlin’s site were breached by Anonymous, which later replaced the homepages of several Russian and Belarusian media outlets with anti‑war content.

Russia has recently blocked Twitter, Facebook, various news sites, and major mobile app stores. Additionally, US‑based backbone provider Cogent Communications is cutting services to Russia, causing disruptions and performance issues for many mainstream sites.

On 6 March, the Russian government decided that by 11 March all Internet services must switch to the .ru national top‑level domain, abandoning overseas hosting and traffic.