According to Forbes, a new report from Top10VPN details an “unprecedented” internet crackdown in Russia throughout 2025, costing the national economy a staggering $11.9 billion. That figure represents more than half of the total global economic impact from internet shutdowns recorded for the year. The strategy isn’t just about full blackouts; it includes a technically sophisticated tactic called the “16 KB Curtain,” which throttles access to Cloudflare-hosted and other Western websites by allowing only the first ~16 kilobytes of data to load. This renders modern web services unusable while preserving a facade of partial connectivity. The report positions this as a major step toward Russia’s vision of a sovereign “RuNet,” aligning with its partial bans on Western tech like Google and WhatsApp.
The stakeholder carnage
So, who gets hurt? Basically, everyone. For regular users, it’s not just about being blocked from Instagram. It’s about your bank’s website timing out, a business invoice failing to send, or a critical software update for your tools never arriving. The “16 KB Curtain” is a special kind of evil genius—it lets the page *start* to load, so your connection seems alive, but then it strangles the data flow. You’re left staring at a broken shell of a website, wondering if the problem is on your end. It creates widespread confusion and saps productivity, which is exactly the point.
The sovereign internet endgame
Here’s the thing: this isn’t a temporary glitch. It’s infrastructure-level censorship. As the report notes, these are “persistent, technically precise restrictions designed to suppress access to information, undermine economic activity, and complicate circumvention.” Targeting Cloudflare is a direct attack on the plumbing of the global web. The long-stated goal of a fully sovereign RuNet, with that symbolic “big red button” to disconnect from the global internet, is being methodically road-tested. Each throttling event is a live-fire exercise for that final switch. And for enterprises, both inside and outside Russia trying to do business there, it makes any digital service unreliable by design.
A wider chilling effect
Now, the irony is thick. The report notes that internet freedoms in the West are facing their own threats, from porn restrictions to age verification, driving a surge in VPN use—a tool once synonymous with bypassing authoritarian blocks. But Russia’s approach is a different beast. It’s a blueprint for how a modern state can cripple digital life without ever officially “turning it off.” It shows that the splinternet isn’t a future possibility; it’s being built today, packet by throttled packet. And the $12 billion price tag? That’s just the measurable economic hit. The cost in isolation, stunted innovation, and pure human frustration is incalculable.
