Despite the expectations of a solution, the conflict between Russia and Ukraine has become very problematically complex in its 5th year. For security reasons, many widely used websites and platforms, including WhatsApp and Telegram, have been banned, and the Russian administration is trying to replace them with ‘national’ ones, while even e-commerce is under threat and everyday life is affected across the board. This article aims to provide a perspective from a techno-political approach and does not side with or amplify the arguments of any opponent.
Techno-politics, located at the intersection of technology and politics, is radically altering the nature of modern warfare and shifting conflict lines from traditional military fronts to the smartphones and daily e-commerce deliveries of ordinary citizens. In the early stages of the Russia-Ukraine clash, this techno-political dimension was mostly shaped around the restriction of international information flows. For instance, in March 2022, the European Union decided to ban the broadcasts of Russian state-sponsored media outlets RT (Russia Today) and Sputnik in the West, citing the need to block the Kremlin’s “disinformation” campaigns from their sides as a move in the communicational battlefield. However, by 2026, the techno-political dynamic of the war has taken on an entirely inward-looking structure. Today, this conflict permeates every cell of daily life, from which messaging applications Russian citizens can use and their rights to access mobile internet, to whether the packages they ordered will be destroyed in logistics centers.
The Digital Iron Curtain
Throughout 2025 and 2026, the Russian state apparatus implemented its goal of creating a sovereign national internet ecosystem called “Runet” at an unprecedented pace. This structure, capable of operating independently of global networks, is based on the systematic purge of Western communication platforms. The Kremlin officially bases these restrictions on security grounds, such as combating terrorism, preventing fraud, and stopping the spread of banned information.
An important of this process occurred on February 11, 2026, when access to WhatsApp was widely disrupted following DNS-level restrictions. This move, which instantly left around 100 million active Russian users offline, was actually the final stage of a six-month gradual pressure campaign. The process, which began in August 2025 with the degradation of voice and video call quality, culminated in the complete severing of access to platform servers. The designation of WhatsApp’s parent company, Meta, as an “extremist” organization in Russia provided the necessary legal basis to pull the plug on this massive and unregulated communication network ahead of the 2026 State Duma elections.
This large-scale censorship mechanism is carried out through Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) hardware called TSPU (Technical Means of Countering Threats), which was obligatorily installed on all internet service providers under the 2019 “Sovereign Internet” law. The state also regularly implements regional mobile internet shutdowns, citing the need to disrupt the navigation systems of drones coming from Ukraine. During these outages, the open internet completely collapses, and citizens are confined to a “whitelist” network where only state-approved services work.
Moscow’s Alternative: The MAX App and Surveillance
The purge of Western platforms is not only a censorship operation but also part of a strategy to forcefully impose state-backed alternatives. At the center of this plan is a super-app called “MAX,” developed by VK, a technology holding controlled by a subsidiary of the state-owned gas giant Gazprom. Modeled after China’s WeChat platform, MAX combines instant messaging, digital identity verification, government services (Gosuslugi, like e-devlet of Türkiye), and financial payments within a single closed ecosystem.
Russia has taken techno-political steps to secure MAX’s market dominance. As of September 2025, it has been made mandatory for the MAX app to be pre-installed on all smartphones and tablets sold in Russia. More importantly, during regional mobile internet shutdowns imposed by the state, which can last for weeks, only MAX, which is on the “whitelist,” remains connected. This creates a structural coercion mechanism that drives users to MAX because they have no other alternative.
Critics argue that the application’s integration with state infrastructure could facilitate extensive state surveillance, although Russian authorities reject such characterizations. The application’s use as a tool for mass surveillance and digital censorship was followed by EU sanctions targeting VK and entities associated with MAX. In the techno-political reality of 2026, Russian citizens are left with a sharp dilemma: either continue to exist in the digital world by using a platform which is subject to some distrust issues or be completely isolated behind the digital iron curtain.
To put it in a general policy framework, President Putin himself has been underlining that Western financial and tech centers use global digital platforms, currencies, and software as tools for political coercion and unfair competition. He also stresses that artificial intelligence and machine learning models must be trained on domestic cultural codes, national priorities, and local languages rather than foreign values, of course with a national security approach. These policies appear broadly consistent with this strategic vision.
Kinetic Techno-Politics: E-Commerce and Logistics Wars
While the software layer of daily life is shaped by digital sovereignty policies, the physical infrastructure of the digital economy has directly become a target of kinetic warfare. By mid-2026, both Ukraine and Russia expanded their military strategies to intentionally target the massive logistics centers of each other’s civilian e-commerce giants. Wildberries, known as Russia’s Amazon, and Rozetka, Ukraine’s largest e-commerce platform, have become the epicenters of this next-generation economic war.
Hosting tens of thousands of SMEs in the Russian market and holding strategic partnerships with state-linked financial institutions like VTB Bank, Wildberries is one of the most critical arteries of the country’s internal supply chain. Starting in July 2026, the Ukrainian Armed Forces launched a relentless attack campaign against Wildberries facilities using long-range drones capable of penetrating up to 2,000 kilometers deep inside the Russian border. As a result of attacks on massive warehouses in the Yekaterinburg, St. Petersburg, and Moscow regions, more than 15 facilities were struck in just a few weeks, and 1.18 million square meters of storage space, equating to over 20% of the company’s total capacity, suffered extensive fire damage along with billions of rubles worth of products.
The techno-political strategy behind Ukraine striking these logistics centers is quite clear. Ukrainian officials have argued that certain logistics hubs may support the movement of dual-use goods, a claim that remains contested. However, beyond breaking the military supply chain, these attacks also appear intended to generate psychological pressure on consumers and small businesses. While thousands of small business owners who kept all their assets in Wildberries warehouses and had no insurance were pushed to the brink of bankruptcy overnight, Russian consumers began to feel the direct economic consequences of the conflict in their daily shopping.
Russia’s response to these devastating attacks was extremely harsh and asymmetric. In August 2026, the Russian army carried out massive ballistic missile and kamikaze drone attacks targeting the infrastructure of Ukraine’s largest online retailer, Rozetka, and the private postal service, Nova Poshta. Rozetka’s largest warehouse complex located in the Kiev region was severely damaged in these attacks, resulting in billions of hryvnias in material damage and the biggest financial loss in the company’s history.
This mutual destruction aimed at e-commerce infrastructure proves how blurred the lines have become in the modern warfare paradigm. Digital marketplaces, once seen entirely as symbols of civilian comfort and technological progress, are now classified as strategic logistical targets by military planners.
