Claims that Ukrainian strikes on Russian data centres reduced Kremlin-linked bot networks have spread widely online, but experts have told BBC Verify there is no evidence the attacks have significantly reduced them.
Researchers from dTeam, a US-based group that tracks Moscow-linked influence operations, told BBC Verify there has not been “any traffic change from known Russian accounts and bot clusters on any platform”.
Bots linked to pro-Kremlin influence operations like Storm-1516 and Matryoshka - both of which BBC Verify has previously reported on - were still active on social media on Tuesday, evidence shared with BBC Verify by dTeam shows.
Russia’s cloud infrastructure is highly centralized. There are very few, but large and juicy targets to hit that have a profound effect on the country’s ability to function beyond digital force projection. The first wave of Ukrainian strikes against Russian data centers already knocked many services and companies offline.
Ironically, this is a self-own by the Russian government, which mandates Russian companies to use local services instead of foreign ones while at the same time encouraging this centralized infrastructure that they can easily control.
Data sovereignty is a good thing though. Starting wars is probably a bigger issue for a country than trying to keep their services local.
To be clear though there’s a difference between data sovereignty and centralizing everything. My is to keep the data of the company I work for safe, secure, not subject to random deletion via virus / exploding drone / whatever.
If I kept all the data in one place in one data center I would be failing at my job. Even if we kept all that data in the same country is the company. Anything can go wrong when you have all your data in one place, the hosting could go out of business, they could pivot to AI, there could be a fire, that could be a cyber attack. You need redundancy.
Using that sovereignity for establishing a digital police state is pretty shit even without imperialistic dreams.