[tivert]

>> Eventually the Russian government wants all domestic traffic to pass through these [government-controlled] routing points.

> Certainly not enough to suggest it's some sort of precursor to Chinese level censorship if this action is all that's based on.

That technical capability is an essential precursor to building a clone of the great firewall. After that, the censorship is just a matter of adding firewall rules.

[equalunique]

True, for blocking outgoing AND incoming connections.

Everyone in western media assumes the primary motivation is outgoing connections / censorship.

[laumars]

Maybe because hacking an average Russian citizen's PC nets you no benefits (I mean aside the usual low-level cybor crime that already happens) however controlling the media that person accesses then gives you a great deal of domestic power.