To be fair that article says pretty much what the OP says. They want to ensure the country keeps functioning if it is cut off from the internet. On one level

To be fair that article says pretty much what the OP says. They want to ensure the country keeps functioning if it is cut off from the internet. On one level I sort of understand. My own country would stuffed for a short while if DNS in particular went down. It's not just the internet - the phone system, a lot of TV and god knows what else would be in real trouble. But on the another level, fixing it would just require DNAT'ing a bunch of IP's. If it happened (and it seems like a big if) it would be mostly over after 24 hours of mad scrambling. If you were paranoid enough to want to have everything in place you could try doing the DNAT on small sections, see what broke and what it didn't effect because packets will still flying out, and fix it without inflicting a worse case cyber war outcome on the entire country. From a western perspective, the cost / benefit of what they are proposing seems way out of kilter. Maybe it is politicly reasonable thing to do in Russia, but in the west a whole sections of society (business, sporting associations, professions) would be willing to put in a few dollars to ensure whosever idea it was would never hold the reigns of power again.