What are the roots and drivers of the digital sovereignty narrative in Russian politics? Is there any Russian alternative to foreign 5G technology? How successful is Moscow’s import substitution policy in telecom hardware and software? Is the specter of sanctions against 5G equipment and other civilian telecom software a real threat, or a myth spread by scaremongers? Podcast host Alexander Gabuev is joined by Janis Kluge, a senior associate with the SWP research facility in Berlin, and Alena Epifanova, a research fellow at DGAP—also in Berlin—to discuss the ideas of digital sovereignty and a sovereign internet, and the challenges to those concepts.