The Russification of Ukrainian IP Registration

> the biggest practical impact may be to the Ukrainians having to connect to the internet using IP addresses that are suddenly considered to be Russian. These users may encounter problems accessing services that have been blocked to Russian IP addresses

Blocking Russian IPs possibly ended up hurting the very same people it was ostensibly meant to help. Like so many bans and restrictions that companies imposed in the wake of the invasion, this was little more than cheap virtue signalling.

> The Russian government wants the world to believe these internet service providers are operating on Russian soil. Changing the registrations of these IP ranges to reflect that worldview is part of a wider effort of the Russification of captured Ukrainian territories.

I don't see any evidence offered to support the claim that this is Russian government policy. In fact, earlier examples contradict this notion:

> Today you can find Crimean providers announcing IP ranges registered as Ukrainian and others announcing ranges registered as Russian.

Crimea has been under Russian control for for nearly 8 years now. It is fair to assume the Russian state would have cracked down on ISPs advertising UA if this actually was policy.

> In fact, one Crimean provider wasted no time to change the country field of its IP addresses. Based in Sevastopol, Lancom’s IP registrations were changed from Ukraine to Russia on March 18th, 2014, the exact same day Russia signed the Treaty of Accession of the Republic of Crimea to Russia.

Does that sound like the result of government coercion? I guess verboten to acknowledge that there are people in these regions who want to be part of Russia.