Messages from .ru addresses will face increased response times, Estonia’s digital minister has said
Estonia will restrict emails sent to government institutions from addresses using Russia’s .ru domain, Justice and Digital Affairs Minister Liisa Pakosta has announced, claiming that the measure is necessary due to an “elevated cyber risk.”
Since restoring independence in 1991, Tallinn has introduced a range of policies that undermine the rights of ethnic Russians, who comprise roughly 20% of the Baltic country’s population of 1.36 million. Significant financial and travel restrictions were also imposed on Russian citizens after the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022.
Pakosta said on Sunday that all messages from the Russian domain will be routed through additional checks, although she did not specify what the screening would involve.
The measure, described as a “quarantine,” will be applied on top of the Estonian government’s existing cybersecurity procedures and will slow response times, the minister said. She urged local authorities to adopt a similar approach.
Major cyberattacks typically involve exploiting weaknesses in computer systems or using social engineering to trick users into launching malicious software. Neither method depends on emails being sent from a particular national domain.
The “quarantine” is set to take effect on August 31, the anniversary of Russia’s 1994 completion of the withdrawal of former Soviet troops from the newly independent Baltic country. Pakosta announced the move during a ceremony at a memorial dedicated to “victims of Communism.”
The Estonian authorities have framed the presence of ethnic Russians in the country as a legacy of Soviet occupation. Tallinn has also honored nationalist fighters who sided with Nazi Germany during World War II while curbing commemorations of the Soviet role in defeating Adolf Hitler. Moscow has accused Estonia of promoting the rehabilitation of Nazi ideology.
The .ru domain was introduced in 1994, and ranks among the world’s ten largest country-code domains by number of registered websites. A Cyrillic version, .рф, was launched in 2010, while the .su domain has remained in use since 1990 despite the dissolution of the USSR. Pakosta did not announce any restrictions targeting emails from the latter two domains.
