A few weeks after the capture of Kherson, Russian soldiers broke into the office of a local Internet provider and ordered company employees to give up control of the network..

“They came, put a machine gun to their head and just said: “Do this.”. And they did this step by step with each company,” Maxim Smelyanets, the owner of an Internet company that provided a connection in Kherson, but is based in Kyiv, told the New York Times..

Russian authorities redirected Kherson mobile and Internet data to Russian networks, several officials told the publication. Access to Facebook, Instagram and Twitter is blocked, as well as to Ukrainian news sites or other independent sources of information. The invaders cut off access to the networks of Ukrainian mobile operators, forcing the residents of Kherson to use the services of Russian companies.

What happened in the southern Ukrainian city is systematically repeated in other Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine. Shelling and bombing destroy towns and villages, civilians are detained, tortured and killed, food and medical supplies almost stop. This was told to the New York Times by human rights activists and eyewitnesses.. Ukrainians forced to live under occupation have access only to Russian state television and radio. And in order to finally consolidate control, Russia is also occupying parts of Ukrainian cyberspace. Therefore, Kherson, Melitopol and Mariupol are cut off from Ukraine. Residents of these cities do not have access to news about the war, as well as to contact with relatives.. In some areas, the Internet and mobile communications are not available at all..

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Restricting access to the Internet is an authoritarian scenario for Russia, which, most likely, will be implemented in every part of Ukrainian territory that can only be occupied. Ukrainians are under powerful digital censorship and surveillance. Russia monitors Internet traffic and digital communications, spreads propaganda and controls what news reaches people and what doesn't..

“The first thing the occupiers do when they come to Ukrainian territory is they cut the nets. The goal is to restrict people's access to the Internet and block the ability to keep in touch with family and other cities in order to prevent them from receiving truthful information,” said Stanislav Prybitko, head of mobile communications development at the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine..

The New York Times writes that Russian efforts to control and censor Ukrainian Internet traffic have no precedent in the world.. Even after Beijing tightened its grip on Hong Kong in 2019, the city's internet has remained largely free of the censorship that cities on the Chinese mainland are under.. Russian tactics can be bypassed with a VPN. However, the occupiers are likely to repeat them in the future..

The New York Times writes that Russian control of the Internet in Ukraine is based on important infrastructure built many years ago.. Having annexed Crimea, the state telecommunications company of Russia laid a cable through the seabed in the Kerch Strait, and also built other necessary infrastructure. This made it possible to redirect Internet traffic from the peninsula to Russia.

Now data from the occupied parts of Ukraine is redirected south to Crimea, and from there via this cable to Russia. On March 30, traffic from Kherson companies Skynet and Status Telecom suddenly completely disappeared. A few days later, the message was restored, but now it was through a Russian state-owned company in Crimea, said Doug Madori, an Internet analyst at Kentik..

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Russian forces also destroyed the infrastructure that connected the occupied cities in the south with other regions of Ukraine and the global network, explained Mikhail Kononikhin, head of information technology and system administrator of a provider that served about 10,000 customers in Melitopol.. He also noted that the Russian military also stole the equipment of Ukrainian companies in order to improve communications with Crimea, in particular, fiber optics..

“In some Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine, digital censorship is even worse than in the Russian Federation itself, officials and industry representatives say. In Kherson and Donetsk regions, access to Google, YouTube and Viber is blocked,” the newspaper writes..

“We are watching the occupation of the Ukrainian Internet,” said Alp Toker, director of the NetBlocks Internet monitoring company..

According to Konstantin Ryzhenko, a Ukrainian journalist from Kherson, many Ukrainian websites and banking services are unavailable, as well as social networks such as Facebook and Instagram.. VPN services have become essential for people to keep in touch. Ryzhenko said that in order to buy SIM-cards of Russian operators, Ukrainians living in the occupation need to show their passport. This allows the Russian military to tether people to their mobile phones and track their movements or web searches..

“You get a device that monitors your traffic, knows who you are, and accurately determines all your actions on the Internet,” the journalist said..

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Some Ukrainian ISPs sabotaged their own networks so as not to give them to the Russians. Anton Koval, who lived for 21 days in an occupied village near Kyiv, said that Russian soldiers walked the streets and destroyed cell towers. Cut off from information and communication with the outside world, some desperate residents climbed onto the roofs of houses, trying to catch the net..

“But the Russians caught people trying to climb somewhere higher. When a neighbor tried to climb a tree, they shot him in the leg,” Koval said..