The potential threat of a government attacking the internet cables is not a new one, but recently developed naval capabilities mean warships could become more covert.
Russia has new submarine vessels “that could give them ability to (surreptitiously) inflict damage on the cables”, Dr Muraviev said.
“Even if Russians want to cut off the internet ... they are a part of it, they would suffer from this just as much as anyone else,” he said.

“The Russians have their own internet, but they have no ambition to abandon the World Wide Web,” he said. “People in Russia would rebel.”

Reports this month in the UK’s Telegraph say Russia has been running tests.
According to the report, Andrei Semerikov, a director of a Russian service provider said the objective was to see if the Russia’s internet could continue to function in isolation from the global internet.
The experiment, denied by the Kremlin, reportedly failed because thousands of smaller service providers continued to pass information out of the country.