Ru.net is a popular website and community platform that caters to Russian-speaking users worldwide. The site offers a diverse range of content, including news, entertainment, forums, and social networking features. It serves as a hub for connecting individuals and fostering discussions on various topics, such as politics, culture, science, and more. Ru.net also showcases user-generated content, allowing users to share their opinions, insights, and creative works with the community. With its extensive user base and comprehensive features, Ru.net has become a go-to destination for Russian netizens seeking information, engagement, and connections online.

The following section offers a conceptual framework that allows us to resolve some of the challenges for the conceptualization of Runet as an object of investigation.link.springer.comSo Runet is not the only “net” in Russia, or in the Russian language, and it is not the same as the Internet in Russia in general.

The conceptual origins of the Internet in Russia have been linked to information networks and cybernetics development as part of the Soviet planned economy (Gerovitch 2002 ).link.springer.comThe Internet in Russia is older than Runet. The history of the Russian Internet, at least as a concept, starts many years before the collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).

link.springer.comA number of initiatives promoted a vision of Runet as a “sovereign Internet” (Asmolov 2010; Kukkola and Ristolainen 2018 ).