Russia has recently announced the commencement of work on a new Information Security Doctrine. Although the document has not yet been formally drafted, its basic contours are already known. At the end of January, the 28th National Information Security Forum Infoforum-2026 was held in Moscow. During its plenary session, Dmitriy Gribkov, a representative of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, presented the conceptual framework for a new version of Russia’s Information Security Doctrine. As is typical of the rhetoric employed by the Russian authorities to justify further restrictions on citizens’ rights and freedoms, the proposed changes to this foundational document are framed as a means of ‘strengthening Russia’s sovereignty in the information sphere’. In this context, Gribkov referred to contemporary information threats facing Russia, including the technical capabilities of smartphones, uncontrolled internet access via Starlink, so-called anti-Russian information campaigns, and attacks on IT infrastructure.
The new doctrine as a continuation of existing legal regulations
The new strategic document is unlikely to represent a significant departure from earlier approaches to information security, notably the 2016 Information Security Doctrine and the 2017 Information Society Development Strategy. Both documents were drafted after Russia’s illegal occupation and annexation of Crimea and its support for pro-Russian separatists in parts of Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk regions in 2014, at a time of intensifying confrontation with the West. These documents, which formally remain in force, emphasise the growing information threats allegedly originating from Western states. Independent sources of information not controlled by the Russian authorities are portrayed as hostile, undermining Russia’s identity, threatening the ‘traditional values’ that are said to unite Russian society, and challenging the country’s territorial integrity.
A similar perspective is evident in other Russian strategic documents published since 2014, including the 2014 Military Doctrine, the 2015 and 2021 National Security Strategies, and the 2016 and 2023 Foreign Policy Concepts. All of these conceptualise information security primarily in terms of information warfare with the West. They reiterate Gribkov’s assertion that the role of Russian media is to ‘strengthen Russia’s sovereignty’, which in practice entails isolating Russian society from any information that contradicts the foreign and domestic policy objectives of the authorities. Russian strategic documents also explicitly assign the media the task of supporting state policy. As a result, Russian media professionals cannot be regarded as journalists in the ‘Western’ sense of the term: their role is not to report facts, but to implement state policy in the sphere of information security.
Even prior to 2022, Russia promoted the idea of a unified information space within the Commonwealth of Independent States, which in reality implied Russian control over information flows. This model was successfully imposed only in Belarus. Since 2022, however, Russia’s declining political influence has prevented it from exerting sufficient pressure on other CIS states to introduce pro-Russian media censorship or to coordinate their information policies with Moscow.
Deepening Russia’s informational isolation
Significant changes have occurred in Russian information policy since the adoption of the 2016 Information Security Doctrine. These developments are directly linked to Russia’s war against Ukraine, launched in 2022, and to preparations for further military confrontation, whether in the form of a regional conflict in Europe or a global war, should the United States and Canada fulfil their alliance commitments to NATO’s eastern flank in the event of a European conflict.
These shifts have profoundly affected Russia’s approach to information security. Since late 2021, the informational isolation of Russian society has intensified markedly. In the course of preparations for the war against Ukraine and a potential escalation of confrontation with the West, the remaining media outlets that retained even limited independence from state authorities were dismantled.
Since 2022, the Russian authorities have further tightened restrictions on access to independent information channelsby increasing control over the internet. Although they have not yet succeeded in establishing a fully isolated national internet (Runet), numerous effective measures have been introduced, including the deliberate slowing of data transmission in order to impede access to independent sources of information. There have also been localised attempts to block internet access entirely, and mobile internet services have been disabled in certain regions. These measures have proved problematic, as they significantly disrupt access to the Russian segment of the internet, including essential public services. Simultaneously, the authorities closely monitor content produced by Russian users on social media. Any material deemed to oppose the war against Ukraine or to question government policy is classified as extremist or terrorist and is subject to criminal prosecution. As part of the drive towards comprehensive information control, the authorities are introducing the official Max messenger, which is intended to be pre-installed on all mobile devices sold in Russia and to serve as the primary means of electronic communication.
The goal of informational isolation: war
Explicit threats of military aggression against NATO member states (above all the Baltic countries and Poland, but also, in connection with their support for Ukraine, the United Kingdom) characterise not only Russian state media rhetoric. Similar threats are evident in statements by senior officials, including Vladimir Putin, Dmitry Medvedev, and Defence Minister Andrey Belousov. These declarations, together with the manner in which state control over information has been employed since 2022, indicate the objectives underlying the renewed Information Security Doctrine.
First, as demonstrated since 2022, state-controlled information is intended to bolster societal resilience in the face of a deepening economic crisis and an inevitable demographic catastrophe caused by the war. The media’s role is to suppress manifestations of social discontent and to project an image of a developing, successful, and powerful Russia, juxtaposed against a supposedly declining West. This is achieved by blocking information that could provoke social unrest, including data on the true number of Russian military casualties in Ukraine and the actual scale of Russia’s demographic (including ethnic) and economic problems.
Second, the Russian ruling elite was deeply unsettled by society’s passivity during Yevgeniy Prigozhin’s rebellion in 2023, which exposed the weakness of state governance and the regime’s inability to defend itself. The initial success of the rebellion was facilitated by the Wagner Group’s extensive presence in the Russian internet space, including social media, and by Prigozhin’s personal popularity. This episode demonstrated that threats to Putin’s power originate not only from external, Western sources of information, but also from internal actors – particularly radical, conservative, and far-right circles, whose appeal is growing amid economic decline and the failure of the war effort.
Even if Russia’s threats of military aggression against NATO do not materialise, these information-related threats will continue to intensify as Russia’s internal difficulties deepen in connection with the war. Conversely, any expansion of Russian aggression through a new conflict, whether regional in Europe or supra-regional, would further exacerbate Russia’s economic and social crises, potentially generating levels of social unrest comparable to those that contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union. From this perspective, the continued deepening of Russia’s informational isolation appears not merely as a policy choice, but as a necessity for Putin and his inner circle.
Written by Professor Marcin Składanowski, Fellow at CISES and Full Professor of Russian and International Security Studies at the Catholic University of Lublin