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The Kremlin Jails the Father of Russia’s Internet

The regime is punishing those who built modern Russia's internet for what amounts to thought crimes, like Alexey Soldatov.

On August 28, 1990, the very first Soviet connection to the global Internet was made when Kurchatov programmers exchanged emails with a university in Helsinki, Finland. He also helped to established the organizations which provided the technical backbone of the Russian Internet ever since — including distribution of the domain names and IP addresses. The Russian state, vindictive and increasingly violent by nature, decided to take his liberty, a perfect illustration of the way Russia treats the people who helped contribute to the modernization and globalization of the country.

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