Iran and Russia are no longer merely building and sharing technologies for censorship, surveillance, and cyber control. They are now seeking to use international institutions, particularly the UN and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), to legitimize and export an authoritarian model of Internet governance, one that places state sovereignty over cyberspace above the principles of an open Internet.

For years, citizens in both Iran and Russia have lived under this model through Internet shutdowns, online censorship, pervasive surveillance, and the systematic monitoring of digital communications. The new phase is far more consequential. Rather than confining this model within their own borders, Tehran and Moscow now appear to be working to advance it through international institutions, with the potential to reshape global norms governing the Internet and ultimately affect the digital rights of people far beyond their own countries.

The Strategic Foundations of Tehran-Moscow Cooperation

On 11 August 2026, Iran and Russia held the second round of consultations on implementing their bilateral Agreement on Cooperation in the Field of International Information Security. Senior officials from the foreign ministries of both countries reviewed progress on the agreement and its joint action plan, discussing cybersecurity, critical infrastructure protection, cybercrime, artificial intelligence, and broader cooperation between the competent authorities of the two governments. More significantly, they agreed to advance the next steps for coordinating joint actions in international forums, particularly at the United Nations.

Tehran and Moscow had already signed their bilateral information security agreement in January 2021, four years before concluding the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Treaty in January 2025. The timing was significant. As the 20-year cooperation agreement signed during President Mohammad Khatami’s administration was approaching its expiration, the two governments chose not to wait for the broader strategic treaty. Instead, they established a separate legal framework dedicated to information security and cybersecurity, underscoring the strategic importance both governments attached to digital affairs.

The Evolution of Technical Cooperation in IT and Cybersecurity

Technical cooperation between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Russian Federation extends far beyond a series of bilateral agreements. Official documents, technical reporting, and investigative research indicate that this partnership has evolved across at least seven interconnected domains.

The first concerns Internet filtering, censorship, and traffic control, including Deep Packet Inspection (DPI), traffic management, user access control, and other technologies used to regulate digital communications. The second involves digital surveillance through Lawful Intercept (LI) systems, subscriber identity management, and telecommunications infrastructure capable of monitoring and analyzing communications. A third area focuses on urban surveillance, artificial intelligence, and biometric technologies, particularly facial recognition and intelligent public monitoring systems.

Beyond domestic control, cooperation also extends to offensive cyber capabilities, including the exchange of operational expertise, cyber threat techniques, and hacker tradecraft. Closely linked are cyber-enabled influence operations, where state-funded media outlets including RT, Sputnik, Press TV, and Fars News, operate alongside coordinated networks of hybrid human-bot accounts that are amplifying aligned narratives in social platforms.

Additional areas include alternative digital financial infrastructure designed to facilitate sanctions evasion through cryptocurrencies and digital payment ecosystems, as well as satellite and GPS jamming, electronic warfare, and communications disruption technologies whose strategic importance has grown alongside expanding military cooperation between Tehran and Moscow.

The Authoritarian Bloc and the Battle Over Internet Governance

The decision by Tehran and Moscow to coordinate their positions in international forums marks a significant shift in their partnership. Their cooperation is no longer confined to technology transfer or cybersecurity operations; it is increasingly extending into international law and the global governance of the Internet.

The Starlink dispute before the ITU's Radio Regulations Board (RRB) illustrates this approach. During repeated nationwide Internet shutdowns, Starlink enabled Iranians to communicate with the outside world, while in Ukraine it became a critical communications and command-and-control platform for Ukrainian forces. Both governments therefore view the technology as a strategic challenge to state control over communications. By invoking ITU mechanisms and calling on Norway and the United States to disable Starlink terminals inside Iran, Tehran has demonstrated its willingness to use international institutions to advance domestic censorship objectives.

More fundamentally, the convergence between Tehran and Moscow is conceptual rather than technological. Over the past two decades, Russia, the People’s Republic of China, and later the Islamic Republic of Iran have adopted a common vocabulary centered on international information security, state sovereignty in cyberspace, and cyberspace governance. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has systematically promoted this vision under the doctrine of Cyber Sovereignty, while Russia has advanced a parallel framework through its concept of International Information Security. The Islamic Republic has increasingly embraced the same model alongside the expansion of its National Information Network (NIN). Viewed in this context, recent coordination at the UN is part of a broader effort to replace the principles of an open Internet with a state-centric model of sovereign cyberspace.

Is the Battle Over Internet Governance Reaching the ITU?

The consultations held in Moscow on 11 August 2026 added a new dimension to the already extensive strategic partnership of Islamic Republic of Iran and Russia in information security. The latest discussions suggest that the partnership is evolving toward coordinated legal and diplomatic initiatives in international forums. The central question is whether they are now seeking to legitimize and institutionalize their preferred model of Internet governance through institutions such as the UN and the ITU.

Over the past several years, the Islamic Republic has repeatedly used nationwide Internet shutdowns and severe restrictions on digital communications as instruments to suppress protests and conceal widespread human rights violations. If governments with such a record are now seeking to employ the legal mechanisms of the ITU and UN to advance their objectives, this development should be regarded as a warning signal for the international community, organizations defending Internet freedom, and the global human rights community. This is not merely a dispute over international relation norms and rules. It is a question of fundamental human rights.

Particularly after the near total Internet shutdown on 8 and 9 January 2026, which coincided with the killing of tens of thousands of Iranian protesters, it is no longer sufficient to examine cases such as Starlink solely through the lens of technical regulations, radio spectrum management, or international telecommunications law. Any decision, regulatory practice, or institutional process that restricts citizens’ access to independent communications technologies may carry direct and, at times, fatal consequences for fundamental human rights.

For this reason, the decisions, procedures, and institutional processes of the ITU, and particularly those of its RRB, should be subjected to far greater scrutiny from the perspectives of human rights, freedom of expression, and access to information.

Technical rules are not politically neutral when access to communications can determine whether abuses are seen, documented, or hidden.