Russia stated publicly that they were going to do some sort of test to shut down the internet within Russia only. Not to crash the whole internet. At least that’s what was public. The reason was to test whether internet traffic internal to Russia was going outside of its borders. Entirely reasonable, IMO.
I think the idea was to find out how much of their internal data was being deliberately routed outside the country. Through the US and/or China maybe?
I don’t recall a specific date being given, but it sounded like the test was supposed to take place within the next couple of months.
ah, thanks! I googed it:
https://www.zdnet.com/article/russia-to-disconnect-from-the-internet-as-part-of-a-planned-test/
Putin spoke recently about the urgency to have Russia’s own Complete Independent Internet with stronghold security in case the World Wide Internet was ever shut off in Russia by another country. This would tap into the World Wide Net of course but be able to keep Russia’s interests operational should they be cut off.