"Russia needs more internet access, not less": Cloudflare will not turn off services in Russia

Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince said that the company will not turn off its services in Russia and Belarus. Earlier, Ukraine called on Cloudflare to block access for users from these countries.

"We believe that the Russian government will only be happy if we block Cloudflare services in Russia," said the CEO of Cloudflare.

The company agrees that since the beginning of a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, it has become dangerous to provide any services in Russia. But they believe that it would be a mistake to completely block Cloudflare there, because this "would do little harm to the Russian government", but would restrict access to information from outside for those people who criticize the authorities.

"Russia needs more internet access, not less," wrote Matthew Prince.

The company also mentioned that the Russian government itself has threatened to block certain Cloudflare services and customers over the past few years.

At the same time, Cloudflare adheres to the imposed sanctions and blocks access for customers who are subject to these sanctions. In particular, we are talking about Russian financial institutions and companies associated with the so-called DPR and LPR.

Regarding Ukraine, Cloudflare has seen many DDoS attacks both in recent days and before the Russian invasion. Therefore, the company is expanding free support for Ukrainian government and news organizations. In addition, any Ukrainian organizations exposed to the attack can apply for free protection under the Galileo project.