Indeed. I think of all those "Slack is down, everyone can't work" moments when I think of this. They're really trying to remove outside dependencies, and limiting the ability for other actors to use those dependencies against them.

My guess is the US thinks along the same lines, but since most things Internet are US-based to begin with, they're probably less concerned with a dramatic public test.

> since most things Internet are US-based

What is meant by this?

They probably mean that a large percentage of internet services are hosted on US-based servers. As a regular AWS/Azure customer, the regions in which I tend to see provisioning issues makes this seem right, though I'd love to see some numbers.

For various reasons the internet maps much closer to GDP than Population. But, largely it’s a case of smaller economies driving less advertising dollars which supports fewer websites. So it’s also weighted more to consumer spending than raw GDP.

From a practical standpoint, most users in the US are accessing US-shored services.

Yep, there's no aws Russian region but plenty in the US.

Though they now have new Russia focused jobs: https://www.amazon.jobs/en/search?offset=0&result_limit=10&s... Maybe this is not a coincidence.

They obviously have sales there and probably cloud front infrastructure too. Maybe a az in the future, only they know.

Russia has less than 1/12th the US’s GDP. They simply have less demand for this stuff.

That's not really relevant to the point though. Also how about the gdp of Ireland or Brazil or Bahrain or South Africa or Singapore or Australia?

GDP doesn't have much to do with it.

Amazon cares a little about physical location and a lot about network bandwidth for this stuff.

So, they are building a location in South Africa that will cover southern Africa, but their locations in Brazil and Europe actually have good coverage for Africa already and only recently has the demand approached the point to be worth the investment.

The reason for the is under sea Cables provided most of Africa’s backhaul capacity, which relates a little or geography and a lot of economic development.

So your point about gdp isn't relevant?

“Demand” and physical infrastructure have a lot to do with GDP. By Demand I mean the price quality curve people / companies are willing to pay.

Russia has 1/12 US GDP spread over a huge area. They have fairly good network capacity but simply don’t pay for that many servers. Tiny counties with good networks may randomly be chosen, but the odds are low. Where both US and China have the demand to support multiple AWS zones,

I think this kind of exercise and thinking is also pretty ahead of its time, Russia really understands the implications of cyber warfare. Ww3 is really going to take place on the net

Correction: WW3 might start online, but it will end with mushroom clouds.

To the GP Whatever your opinion of Russian politics, from a technical standpoint, aiming for full autonomy of critical services at a national scale, is praise worthy!

Sure, and the Nazis were really organized, why they almost made it to Moscow.

>they almost made it to Moscow.

And almost made it back.

> Russia will be free to wreck havoc on the general internet, without domestic impact

This is like demolishing one’s cities to claim immunity from nuclear attack. There’s no reason the damage couldn’t have been incurred at a later date, only when necessary.

Disconnecting from the world will leave Russia economically, scientifically, culturally and thus militarily poorer. The only reason the decision makes sense is it helps keep Putin and his gang in power.