A Report on Digital Repression, Information Control, and Strategic Implications

A photo courtesy Maxym Beznosiuk. Used with permission

June 25, 2026 — A high-level briefing convened by the Helsinki Commission brought together leading experts to examine russia’s comprehensive system of digital authoritarianism in occupied Ukrainian territories. Alanna Novetsky, Communications Associate at the Commission for Security and Cooperation in Europe (U.S. Helsinki Commission), moderated the discussion, which addressed the integration of surveillance technology, information control mechanisms, and strategic implications for Ukraine and the broader international order.

The Human Cost: Digital Oppression in Occupied Territories

As Maksym Beznosiuk, Analyst at The Jamestown Foundation and Associate Fellow at GLOBSEC, emphasized in his remarks, approximately 5 million Ukrainians living under russian occupation face a daily reality of constant surveillance and control. Residents endure routine document checks, phone inspections, filtration procedures, and the persistent threat of detention for perceived disloyalty. What makes this situation particularly concerning is that these conditions did not emerge overnight. Since 2022, russia has methodically transformed military occupation into a comprehensive system of governance designed to entrench permanent control.

Russia has pursued this objective through several interconnected mechanisms. First, the occupation authorities implemented administrative coercion and integration, systematically incorporating occupied territories into russian bureaucratic and identification systems. Second, the kremlin expanded coercive passportization measures, linking access to basic services, employment, and property rights with russian citizenship, while also increasingly using citizenship status to facilitate military registration and mobilization. Third, moscow focused on the systematic erasure of Ukrainian identity across education, media, culture, and public life, banning the Ukrainian language in schools, removing Ukrainian books, and hindering access to remote Ukrainian educational opportunities, while simultaneously replacing Ukrainian culture with russian ideology and pro-russian narratives. Finally, the kremlin intensified demographic engineering, offering high salaries, subsidized mortgages, and relocation incentives to russian teachers, doctors, cultural workers, and other specialists willing to relocate to occupied areas.

From Isolation to Integration: The Transformation of Occupation

According to Maksym Beznosiuk, Analyst at The Jamestown Foundation and Associate Fellow at GLOBSEC, Russia’s occupation system has evolved significantly since 2022, shifting from military control toward administrative integration designed to make Russian rule permanent. Beznosiuk further elaborated that occupation authorities have increasingly combined violence with technological tools that serve as an effective force multiplier and enabler, deepening residents’ dependence on occupation institutions and further entrenching control.

Beznosiuk explained that occupation authorities implemented a preventive threat elimination approach, assuming basic civilian disloyalty and using technology to monitor and regulate behavior. Once inside Russian administrative, identification, and telecom systems—with technology serving as a force multiplier—residents became more visible to Russian administrative databases, military registration systems, and other mechanisms of state control. Employment, communications, and property rights increasingly depended on this integration. Once fully incorporated, opting out becomes virtually impossible. As Iryna Adam, Research Associate at The Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, elaborated, this technological integration works hand-in-hand with systematic information isolation. Russia has pursued a two-pronged strategy: first, cutting off access to Ukrainian and Western information by blocking Internet access and limiting exposure to Ukrainian and Western media outlets; second, flooding the information space with Russian narratives.  Since 2023, Russian-controlled Telegram channels, television stations, radio broadcasts, and news websites operate continuously in occupied territories, disseminating disinformation narratives that attack Ukraine and glorify the Russian war effort. Residents have been provided free access to Rusky Mir (Russian World), a television package designed to reinforce pro-Russian ideology.  This isolation combined with narrative flooding creates a disorienting environment where, without access to alternative information sources, residents struggle to maintain connection to Ukrainian identity and resist the Kremlin’s cultural and political integration agenda.

Technology as Force Multiplier: Surveillance and Control Systems

As Steven Feldstein, Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, noted, technology serves as a crucial force multiplier and enabler for expanding russia’s control reach across occupied territories. The information war evolving in occupied Ukraine extends well beyond territorial boundaries. Iryna Adam highlighted that Russia is developing a new state-controlled super-app called Max, based in part on China’s WeChat model, designed to further entrench digital authoritarianism.

Max is part of the kremlin’s broader effort to replace foreign digital platforms with Russia’s own centralized domestic ecosystem for communications, public services, and everyday online activity. As of 2025, Max is required to come pre-installed on new phones sold in Russia, and authorities have ordered banks to stop using Telegram and WhatsApp in favor of Max, pushing universities, schools, and public agencies to do the same. For people in occupied territories, Max represents a direct threat, as Russian occupation authorities have increasingly pushed residents into Russian identification, economic, and telecom systems.

The surveillance implications are serious for both occupied territories and Western audiences. Max collects user data including IP addresses, behavioral metrics, and contact information. Its privacy policy openly states that data may be shared with third parties and state agencies, potentially including Russia’s FSB surveillance apparatus and its SORM interception system. This data can be abused by an authoritarian system to map diaspora communities outside Russia, track activists inside and outside Russia within occupied territories, monitor cross-border relationships, and enable transnational repression.

Modeling and Escalation: The China Precedent

Steven Feldstein highlighted that many tactics employed in occupied Ukraine borrow directly from Russia’s own repression playbook used domestically, as well as modeling from other authoritarian regimes. Feldstein explained that China pioneered an approach that seamlessly integrated physical surveillance with digital systems, combining surveillance cameras, biometric facial recognition, and data collection at unprecedented scale.

While this integration required hundreds of millions of dollars to install and perpetuate, it created an effect that other countries, though few with sufficient capacity, have studied and begun to implement.

According to Feldstein, what we know about China and Russia is that there have been substantial levels of cooperation. While Russia is not solely driven by China, Russia possesses deep technological capability, substantial resources, and companies capable of providing surveillance equipment, there is material support in terms of Chinese technology making its way into Russian systems. regular meetings between security forces of both nations occur, though the specific depth and operational details of this cooperation remain largely opaque.

Global Expansion and Strategic Implications

Russia’s ambitions extend far beyond occupied Ukraine. As Iryna Adam and Steven Feldstein detailed, Moscow has announced that Max will become available through telecom operators across 40-plus countries in Latin America, Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe, significantly expanding Russia’s potential digital reach. What is happening in occupied Ukraine represents a structured, multi-layered system of digital and physical repression, understanding of which is essential both for supporting Ukraine and for defending the broader security of information systems internationally.

Iryna Adam emphasized, Russia continues running English-language information operations aimed at Western audiences using platforms connected to the Russian foreign ministry. The tactics and narratives Russia employs in Latin America, Africa, and Asia reflect consistent messaging patterns used over decades, narratives that have proven influential on Russia’s own population. This persistent influence in the information environment suggests that even in scenarios of territorial peace, Russia would not relinquish its control and digital ecosystem infrastructure.

Defending Against Digital Authoritarianism: Policy Recommendations

The panelists outlined several actionable steps for democracies to combat these trends:

1. Raise Public Awareness. As Beznosiuk emphasized, the primary challenge in occupied territories is informational isolation. Many people under occupation have no idea they can be evacuated, having been subjected to systematic disinformation that nobody in Ukraine wants them back. Breaking through this informational blockade is essential. Raising public awareness, both within occupied territories and internationally, about the realities of Russian digital repression is critical to countering the narrative of inevitability.

2. Ensure Encrypted Communication Channels. As Beznosiuk stressed, secure, encrypted channels of communication with people in occupied territories must be protected and expanded. Access to Ukrainian remote educational opportunities is increasingly difficult as Russia systematically shuts down these channels. People attempting to access Ukrainian educational opportunities face serious repercussions, including detention for themselves and their families.

3. Support Evacuation and Financial Assistance. Western allies should pressure Russia to open evacuation channels and ease filtration measures at borders. As Beznosiuk emphasized, any individual targeted by Russian authorities faces consequences that extend immediately to their entire family, a reality that creates a powerful disincentive for resistance and escape. Many evacuated individuals face financial hardship and require support during the transition.

4. Impose Targeted Sanctions and International Pressure. Steven Feldstein noted that while sanctions alone will not solve the issue in occupied territories, they can raise the cost for Russia in undertaking such activities. The situation remains a silent crisis that does not receive sufficient international attention or priority.

5. Support Decentralized Freedom Technologies. Feldstein outlined that there exists an ecosystem of decentralized freedom technologies: encrypted chats, mesh networks like BitChat, and others that offer some possibility for secure communication. Scaling these technologies while evading Russian detection and mitigating user risk requires careful, discrete physical networks where people can learn how to use these tools safely.

6. Market Pressure on Technology Companies. Feldstein also noted that in contested environments where Max is not yet mandatory, market pressure on technology companies can play a significant role. Companies like Apple removing Max from the App Store set an important precedent, though in Russia itself, where Max is mandated on new phones, such measures may have limited immediate impact.

The Stakes and the Path Forward

The story of the 17-year-old boy from the eastern part of Ukraine that Alanna Novetsky, shared at the opening of this briefing captures the stakes perfectly. A young person stripped of normal education, isolated from the outside world, living under constant surveillance and threat, yet still harboring hope and seeking connection to Ukraine. This is the daily reality for millions.

However, as the panelists stressed, there is still time to act. The situation on occupied territories is not static. Understanding this comprehensive, multi-layered system of digital and physical repression is essential both for supporting Ukraine as well as for defending the broader security of information systems across the board. As Feldstein emphasized, the cost of inaction extends far beyond Ukraine’s borders, it sets a precedent for authoritarian systems worldwide and threatens democratic institutions globally.

The international community must treat digital authoritarianism as a strategic threat to democratic governance and human rights. Whether through sanctions, technological support, information campaigns, or diplomatic pressure, democracies must demonstrate that the cost of such systematic repression outweighs the benefit Moscow seeks to gain.

Expert Panel

This briefing was moderated by Alanna Novetsky (Communications Associate, Commission for Security and Cooperation in Europe/U.S. Helsinki Commission) and featured Iryna Adam (Research Associate, The Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab); Maksym Beznosiuk (Analyst, The Jamestown Foundation and Associate Fellow at GLOBSEC); and Steven Feldstein (Senior Fellow, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Democracy, Conflict and Governance Program).’s Tech Authoritarianism on the Occupied Territories of Ukraine