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Russia Completes Work on ‘Military Internet’ for State Secrets

Pixabay / edited by The Moscow Times

Russia’s Defense Ministry has completed work on a nationwide intranet designed exclusively for classified data.

According to the Izvestia newspaper, the Russian military has created its own email service for the transmission of sensitive materials, including documents marked “top secret.”

“The final work was completed at the end of this summer, and the network has been fully operational ever since. Currently, we are planning to expand the network by installing additional terminals at more military units and institutions,” a source in the Defense Ministry told Izvestia.

According to the newspaper’s source, Russia’s “military Internet” partly relies on equipment leased from national telecommunications operator Rostelecom.

Izvestia says the intranet has its own websites that can only be accessed through computers that have been approved by federal agents. These approved computers, moreover, have all been disabled from connecting to peripheral devices, such as flash drives, printers, and scanners.

For years, defense officials have pursued the means to protect Russia’s Internet connectivity against the potential threats of external snooping and shutoffs. Earlier this year, the Communications Ministry announced plans to duplicate 99 percent of the Internet's critical infrastructure within Russia.

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