3. Focused Research (2)The Internet in Crimea: Changes inConnectivity Revealed by an Analysis of Routing Data
In 2014 the Russian Federation laid claim on Crimea,

members of the Ministry of Communications of Ukraine;

causing a change of regime and reportedly profound changes

and digital security trainers. We also analyzed informationin Internet regulation and connectivity on the peninsula.

communicated via forums and group chats in the regions

Those changes were evident in our Internet measurements.

as well as press reports, all of which elucidated how

This report is a summary of a paper presented at the Global

the infrastructure transitions happened in Crimea between

Internet Symposium 2020 .

March 2014 and July 2017. Figure 1 also shows these*1

events, which we discuss below.

3.1 Introduction
Crimea is a peninsula located South of Ukraine and West3.2.1 Backgroundof Russia. It was previously administered by Ukraine, but

As a mountainous peninsula, Crimea was heavily dependent

the Russian Federation declared its annexation of Crimea

on the Ukrainian mainland for supplies, from water andin 2014. This caused changes to the way the Internet was

gas to electricity and communications. Russian control

wired for an estimated 2.3 million people living in Crimea.

of Crimean information infrastructure followed a “softUntil 2014, access of Crimeans to the rest of the Internet

substitution” model and took about three years. Thiswas predominantly handled through Ukrainian networks,

reflects the fact that the Russian Federation was not able

held to Ukrainian law and oversight. But since 2014,

to substitute the necessary services all at once without

Crimea has been subject to Russian Internet regulations.

causing an extended period of service disruptions that

Although the Russian government quickly embarked on

would have prompted indignation among the Crimean

large infrastructure projects, such as the construction of

population.

submarine cables, it took three years for Crimean Internet
Service Providers (ISPs) to complete the transition.

The geopolitical status of Crimea as a disputed area andthe resulting sanctions from the US and the EU drove theWe examine and analyze this transition from a perspective

development of a gray market for Internet service in Crimea,

on Internet governance, science and technology studies,

Lugansk, and Donetsk. Progressive centralization of routing

and network measurements. To gain insight into whatpaths and monopolization of the Internet service market in

the transition was actually like, we combine both a

Crimea facilitated control over networks. Consequently, thesociological approach—analyzing media reports andquality and speed of Internet connections degraded, while

information from people in the region—and a science

the cost of Internet services for end-users increased.

and technology approach—analyzing network measurements.
For our network analysis, we propose an AS Hegemony

3.2.2 Ukrainian ISPs Left Crimea

metric based on BGP data to quantify AS (autonomous

Crimea became part of the Russian Federation after asystem, organization that controls routes) dependency.

referendum held on March 16, 2014. As a result, theThis metric lets us examine changes in network policy

majority of Ukrainian telecommunication companies left

in Crimea.

the peninsula and Russia acquired Ukrainian Internet andtelecommunication infrastructures.

3.2 The Internet in Crimea
First, we gathered information via 45 interviews conducted

3.2.3 The Kerch Strait Cable

between December 2017 and May 2018 with relevant

The Russian state-owned telecommunications company,

actors: ISPs from Crimea and the Ukrainian mainland;

Rostelecom, announced on April 25, 2014 the completion

journalists and human rights defenders working in the area;of a 110Gbps submarine link from Russia to Crimea and*1Romain Fontugne, Ksenia Ermoshina, Emile Aben. “The Internet in Crimea: a Case Study on Routing Interregnum”, Global Internet Symposium 2020. Paris, France.
June 2020.

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3. Focused Research (2)said service will be offered by Miranda Media, Rostelecom’s

3.3.1 ASNs in Crimea

local agent. Miranda Media’s main ASN (AS201776) was

As Crimea is a disputed area and the ASN country codes

registered on July 15, 2014 and first seen in BGP as anhave changed over time (RU, UA, or “Other”), we first need

upstream provider for Crimean networks on July 24. The

to identify which ASNs were operating from within the

traffic capacity of the Kerch Strait cable was insufficient,peninsula.

so Ukrainian fiber was kept as a backup option, and one
respondent said “routes through Perekop (Ukrainian cable)

We first looked at RIPE Atlas probes*3 active in Crimea

were cheaper and faster than the undersea connection

and verified if they corresponded to a commercial ISP

via Kerch Strait”. Crimean providers were reluctant to use

using Whois, and we then searched dedicated user forums

the new Kerch Strait cable for speed and quality reasons.

or official websites of these ISPs. We looked at all the

Around that time, Crimean World of Tanks

players were

upstream ISPs of these ASNs and identified those located inamong the first to complain about speed loss on dedicatedCrimea. Next, in February–April 2018, a set of network

forums, and the price of Internet access in Crimea wasmeasurements on eight Crimean networks was taken

raised in 2015.

using OONI probe*4 for Android and iPhone. We also*2

cross-verified this data with the information from forums
and interviews to identify ASNs and upstream ISPs.

3.2.4 Internet De/Consolidation
In May 2016, Russia started construction of a second
Internet cable that reuses Kerch bridge infrastructure andThese efforts identified the biggest upstreams in the area,connects Crimea to an exchange point in Rostov, thus

Miranda Media and UMLC, as well as the two biggest

consolidating Crimea’s connectivity to Russia. This cable

Crimean ISPs, CrimeaCom South and CrelCom. At thiswas reportedly first used in July 2017.

point, we had a list of 80 ASNs thought to be in use in
Crimea. We combined this with a list of all downstream

A year later in May 2017, the Ukrainian president ordered

networks of Miranda Media obtained from BGP data.

that access be blocked to Russian platforms such as social

Finally, we manually checked the combined list andmedia service vk.com, the mail.ru mailing service, andremoved three ASNs that were present at Crimea-IX but

the search engine yandex.ru. On May 31, Crimean users

operated mostly outside of Crimea.

complained about being blocked when trying to accessthese websites. This was seen as evidence that Crimean

The above steps produced a list of 111 ASNs that were

ISPs are still connected to upstream Ukrainian networks.

active between 2012 and 2019. This number is surprisingly

Then in summer 2017, the Ukrainian government put

high, but a closer look at each AS reveals that many arepressure on Ukrainian ISPs to stop providing traffic tomanaged by small local businesses or individuals, andCrimea (allegedly on July 12, 2017).

about half announce only one or two IPv4 prefixes, usually
a /24 or /23.

3.3 The Transition Viewed Through Internet
Measurements

3.3.2 Network Dependencies

We now look at topological changes in Crimea based on

to Crimea, we estimated the AS dependency of Crimean

network data. Our analysis focuses on changes in the way

networks with BGP data and our AS Hegemony metric*5.

ASes operating in Crimea routed traffic before, during, and

AS Hegemony, HASx (ASy), quantifies the likelihood (value

after the transition.

from 0 to 1) of ASy lying on paths toward ASx. HASx

To identify the main transit networks providing Internet*2

An online battle game available worldwide.

*3

A device (https://atlas.ripe.net/) distributed by RIPE, the RIR for Europe, for monitoring the Internet connectivity from the end-user side.

*4

Open Observatory of Network Interface, a tool for checking Internet speed and censorship from the end-user side, available for both Android and iOS.

*5

R. Fontugne, A. Shah, and E. Aben. The (thin) Bridges of AS Connectivity: Measuring Dependency using AS Hegemony. In Proceedings of PAM’18. LNCS, 2018.

© Internet Initiative Japan Inc.

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(ASy) = 1 means that ASy must be traversed to reachASes in the area. Values close to 0 could represent a transit

ASx, while values close to 0 mean that ASy is rarely seenAS that is either rarely seen on paths to all ASes in the area

on paths to ASx.

or heavily employed by only a handful of ASes.

We collected data from two RISs*6 (RRC00, RRC10) andAs a reference, we also compute the average AS Hegemony

two Routeviews

for all ASes registered in Ukraine and in Russia (excluding*7(RV2, LINX) collectors that account for

more than 100 BGP full-feed peers. We then computed AS

Crimean ASNs) and compare the results.

Hegemony values for all globally reachable ASes on the 15thof each month from January 2012 to December 2018*8.

■ Ukraine
As shown in Figure 1, the dependencies for Ukrainian ASes

To compute AS Hegemony scores for Crimea, we merged

are fairly stable from 2012 to 2018. The main changes are

results obtained for all origin ASNs located in the area. We

the decline of TOPNET and the rise of Blinking Megabit fromobtained AS Hegemony scores for the list of Crimea ASNs

2017; information on this transition is publicly available*9.

compiled in Section 3.3.1 and computed the average. The

These ASes are both owned by Datagroup, so our results

average AS Hegemony value also ranges from 0 to 1 andshow that Ukrainian networks are mainly dependent on

conveys network dependency across ASes. Values close to

Datagroup and UARNET. Other significant dependencies are

1 indicate transit ASes commonly seen on paths towards alllarge international ISPs, such as RETN (EU), Level 3 (US),Figure 1: Average AS Hegemony for networks located in Ukraine, Russia, and Crimea.
High AS Hegemony scores reveal networks that are central to reach a region.

*6

Routing Information Service, an Internet routing data collection and analysis service provided by RIPE (https://www.ripe.net/analyse/internet-measurements/routing-information-service-ris). RRC00 and RRC10 are two major repositories.

*7

A University of Oregon project that collects BGP routing information and makes it publicly available (http://www.routeviews.org/routeviews/). RV2 and LINX are two
major repositories.

32*8Internet Health Report. AS Hegemony REST API. https://ihr.iijlab.net/ihr/en-us/api, 05 2020.

*9

PeeringDB. Topnet, last updated on Sep. 4, 2017 (https://peeringdb.com/net/1157).

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3. Focused Research (2)and Hurricane Electric (US). Since the RETN network is

two major events, the appearance of Miranda Media inprimarily deployed in East Europe and Russia *10, this2014 and the end of transit via Ukraine in 2017. We discuss

network is observed as a main transit for both countries.

these two phases in detail below.

Note that RETN was registered in May 2012 with thecountry code UA but changed to EU in July 2018.

3.3.3 Appearance of Miranda MediaThe appearance of Miranda Media was Russia’s first clear■ Russia

step toward consolidating Crimean connectivity. As Figure 1

Similar to what the Ukraine data show, the dependencies ofshows, multiple Crimean ASes switched to Miranda Media

Russian ASes stay fairly stable. The ASes are dependent mostly

as soon as it was made available in 2014. To understandon two state-owned ISPs, Rostelecom and Transtelecom, as

the Miranda Media adoption dynamics, we detail the main

well as two other major Russian ISPs, MegaFon (AS31133)

AS dependencies of Crimea from July to December 2014.

and SovAm/VimpelCom (AS3216). Also similar to Ukraine,
there are dependencies on RETN, Level 3, and Hurricane

We found that 55 out of the 78 Crimean ASes that wereElectric.

active in 2014 had a strong dependency on Miranda Media(H > 0.5) during 2014. Figure 2 depicts these 55 ASes (left■ Crimea

nodes) and their major AS dependencies in 2014 (all other

Unlike those for Ukraine and Russia, the AS dependencies ofnodes). If an AS depends equally on multiple networks, weCrimean ASes changed drastically. In 2012 and 2013, theretake its major dependency to be the closest non-Crimean

were the same dependencies as in the Ukraine along with

AS. For example, networks with a dependency of H = 1

dependencies on local Crimean ISPs (CrimeaCom, CrelCom,

for CrimeaCom South, Miranda Media, and Rostelecom are

and ACS) and a weak dependency on Rostelecom. These

classified as Miranda Media.

results reveal the role of local Crimean ISPs as a proxy tolarger Ukrainian and international ISPs. 2014 is marked by

As of July, the dependencies remained similar to whata significant increase in dependency on a new AS, Miranda

we had observed for Crimea since 2012, but significant

Media, and its parent company, Rostelecom.

changes came in the following two months with Miranda
Media appearing on paths to CrimeaCom South, CrelCom,

At that time, numerous AS paths began to feature theand ACS customers. Thus, by connecting to central

same pattern: they originate from Crimea and go through

Crimean ISPs, Miranda Media became the main transit net-

Miranda Media and then Rostelecom. This routing change

work for Crimea in a very short time frame.

significantly reduced the number of paths transiting
through Ukraine, a trend that continued until mid-2017,

From October 2014, however, we observe dependencies onafter which paths going through Ukrainian ASes were no

the three Crimean ISPs (Figure 2). These networks werelonger observed. From 2015, another Russian ISP, Fiord,

again seen on paths with Ukrainian upstreams instead ofalso became a common transit for Crimea, and as with the

Miranda Media. Operators informed us that Ukrainian ISPs

Miranda Media / Rostelecom pair, from August 2017 Fiord

were sometimes preferred because of the higher cost andconnected to Crimea via UMLC.

degraded quality experienced with Miranda Media.

In summary, the topology of Crimean networks has

Also, a few Datagroup customers switched to Miranda

evolved to a singular state where paths bound to theMedia every month, and thus Datagroup’s Crimean

peninsula converge on two ISPs (Rostelecom and Fiord)

customer count had fallen significantly by the end of 2015.

located outside of Crimea. The transition was marked by*10

RETN Network Map (https://retn.net/networkmap/).

© Internet Initiative Japan Inc.

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In summary, the arrival of Miranda Media and connec-

In January 2017, CrimeaCom South relied on Fiord

tions to key ISPs had an immediate and significant impact(H = 0.8) and Ukrainian ISP WNET (H = 0.07, not shownon Internet routing in Crimea. We found, however, thatin Figure 3). In the months that followed, a few paths

networks had to maintain paths to Ukraine as Miranda

went through Miranda Media, and paths through WNETMedia’s capacity was insufficient. Also, about a third of

stopped completely on May 23. Then at 08:00 UTC on

Crimean ASes (23 out of 78 ASes active in 2014, not

July 19, all paths suddenly started going through Miranda

shown in Figure 2) did not commit to Miranda Media inMedia (H = 1.0).

2014 and kept their paths going through Ukrainian ISPs.
ACS relied equally on Dataline (not shown in Figure 3)
3.3.4 End of the Transition

and Miranda Media from January to June. On June 5,

Ukraine claimed that it stopped providing Internet

Dataline disappeared from ACS’s paths, being replaced byconnectivity to Crimea in July 2017. To understand con-

CrimeaCom South. And from June 2017, ACS followed thenectivity in Crimea before and after this key event, wesame changes as CrimeaCom South.

also investigated AS dependency changes for Crimean
ASes in 2017 (Figure 3).

In early 2017, CrelCom relied mainly on Russian networks
Fiord (H = 0.65) and Miranda Media (H = 0.25) but later

We look at the four ASes that relied mainly on Ukrainian

had two drastic routing changes. In February, almost all

ISPs from January to May 2017 (the four ASes relying on

paths to CrelCom began transiting through Rostelecom

Pitline and TOP NET on the left of Figure 3). At the time,(H= 0.95). Then at 11:30 UTC on July 19, 2.5 hours

Miranda Media / Rostelecom and Fiord provided Internet

after CrimeaCom South switched entirely to Miranda

to a large fraction of Crimean ASes, but the three main

Media, all paths to CrelCom also began transiting via

Crimean ISPs (CrimeaCom South, CrelCom, and ACS) still

Miranda Media. At the time, Fiord was no longer being

had connections with Ukraine.

used in Crimea and the Miranda Media / Rostelecom pairFigure 2: Adoption of Miranda Media
Main dependencies of Crimean ASes from July to December 2014. Left nodes represent Crimean ASes, other nodes are the main dependencies of Crimean
ASes at different points in time. Only the highest dependencies are shown. In the case of a tie, the closest AS to Crimea is selected.

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3. Focused Research (2)was dominating Crimean connectivity (Figure 3, August

So in 2017, we observe routing changes that lead to a2017).

particular topology with a choke point composed of two
pairs: Miranda Media / Rostelecom and UMLC / Fiord

A month later, on August 22, 2017, UMLC began providing(Figure 3). This topology is substantially different fromconnectivity to Crimea. At first, UMLC was only connected

the diverse connectivity observed before August 2014

to CrelCom in Crimea and Fiord in Russia. We measure(Figure 2).

about 20 Crimean ASNs with paths going through CrelCom,
UMLC, and Fiord at the time. Fiord came back by the end

This report has examined network topology changes madeof 2017 as a major provider to Crimea via ULMC (see also

visible by our AS Hegemony metric based on BGP routing

Figure 1). UMLC was subsequently connected directly to

information. We have made public the tools and datasets

other Crimean ASes but seemed to use Fiord exclusively

we developed in the course of this research. Details of ouras upstream provider, thus forming the UMLC / Fiord pair

AS Hegemony metric of Internet dependencies can also

depicted in Figure 1.

be found in other papers referenced herein*11,*12.

Figure 3: End of the Transition
Main dependencies of Crimean ASes in 2017. Left nodes represent Crimean ASes, other nodes are the main dependencies of Crimean ASes at different
points in time. Only the highest dependencies are shown. In the case of a tie, the closest AS to Crimea is selected.

Romain Fontugne
Senior Researcher, IIJ Innovation Institute*11

Tools and datasets: Internet Health Report. AS Hegemony REST API (https://ihr.iijlab.net/ihr/en-us/api), 05 2020. Internet Health Report. Measuring as-dependency ofa country (https://github.com/InternetHealthReport/), 05 2020.

*12

References: R. Fontugne, A. Shah, and E. Aben. The (thin) Bridges of AS Connectivity: Measuring Dependency using AS Hegemony. In Proceedings of PAM’18. LNCS, 2018.

© Internet Initiative Japan Inc.

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