Iranians are increasingly leaving their country to escape the regime’s internet shutdown. At the same time, in Russia, the Kremlin’s tightening grip on online life is fueling growing frustration among the public and parts of the elite. These two developments, while not directly related, share more in common than meets the eye. They are the visible edges of a deeper alignment between two authoritarian states that fear both freedom and their own citizens, cooperating to build sovereign, state-controlled internets.
In the Russian city of Yekaterinburg, 38-year-old Elena is resisting this move towards digital sovereignty in her own way. On her bedside table, she keeps a tablet with only one app installed: MAX, a government-mandated messaging platform widely viewed as both a communication tool and a surveillance mechanism to spy on Russian digital activity. With popular messaging app Telegram now blocked, the Kremlin has pushed MAX as the primary alternative, enforcing its use for government, school and daily functions. Elena is among a growing number of Russians resisting MAX’s adoption and trying to preserve the security of their data, even as the Kremlin accelerates its efforts to insulate Russia from what it sees as subversive forces spread via the global internet.
As part of this project, often described as “digital sovereignty,” Russian authorities have restricted or blocked platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, YouTube, and most recently, Telegram. The regime is also redoubling its efforts to restrict access to VPNs, through which Russians access banned apps and news sites. In place of Western platforms, the state promotes domestic alternatives like VK and RuTube while building the legal and technical infrastructure needed to control the flow of information.
Recent events suggest this effort is entering a more aggressive phase. In March, Muscovites suffered widespread mobile-internet disruptions, joining the legions of smaller Russian cities that had been experiencing outages since May. The authorities claimed these shutdowns, which affect banking, messaging, GPS, and even some government services, were necessary to combat Ukrainian drone strikes. In truth, this episode highlights how parts of the Putin regime — particularly its powerful domestic security service, the FSB — view information itself as a threat. To them, means of communication outside state control are pipelines for subversive outside ideas and tools for coordinating potential unrest.
Iran offers a glimpse of where this path leads. It has moved beyond mere censorship to more drastic measures to seal its population off from outside information. In January, the world watched in horror as the regime in Iran slaughtered thousands of protesters while imposing a nationwide internet blackout. Just a month later, the regime enacted another near-total blackout following the U.S. and Israeli attack, using a “whitelist” to allow access to select government-approved websites.
If the internet crackdowns in Russia and Iran seem similar, that’s partly because the two authoritarian regimes have cooperated on information security for years.
In 2001, Russia and Iran signed a treaty establishing the framework for future interstate cooperation. Two decades later, they struck an agreement formalizing cooperation on cyber and other information security issues. This included a pledge for joint efforts to thwart the “use of information and communication technologies for terrorist and criminal purposes,” which Moscow and Tehran interpret to encompass popular threats to regime control.
Russia has provided Iran with technologies to facilitate digital repression. In 2019, Iran procured Russian facial recognition technology, used to identify and track protesters and dissidents. In 2022, the Russians later provided Iran with eavesdropping equipment, advanced photography devices and lie detectors. In addition, Russian company Protei helped Iranian communications giant Ariantel incorporate DPI, or Deep Packet Inspection, which allows the provider to identify and block particular internet traffic, such as anti-regime news sites, social media platforms, or VPNs.
In 2025, Russia and Iran updated their 2001 treaty with a “comprehensive strategic partnership” agreement. This new treaty includes a section advocating for strengthening internet sovereignty through regulating international companies and calling for the “exchange of experience in the management of national segments of the Internet.” This agreement provides the institutional basis for what is now an increasingly visible partnership: the joint construction of controlled, national internets.
Iran’s state broadcaster, Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, has also expanded cooperation with Russian media networks through joint production, training, and content-sharing agreements. One of the most significant partnerships is with TV BRICS, a Moscow-based platform designed to amplify non-Western narratives across emerging economies.
Russia and Iran’s information-security partnership is not simply about censorship within their respective countries. It is about building a replicable model of information control.
Meeting that challenge will take more than statements of concern by Western governments. Expanding access to secure communication tools, VPNs among them, for people living under repressive regimes will be a must. But the larger task for the United States and its allies is to actively champion a vision of the internet grounded in openness and the free flow of information.
In a world where information moves at the speed of light, access to independent, uncensored knowledge is not simply a democratic ideal. It is a condition of freedom itself—and one increasingly threatened by a growing axis of digital control.
Ivana Stradner is a Research Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies where Dorian McElrone is an intern
