The RIPE NCC and Ukraine/Russia

Since the outbreak of war in Ukraine on 24 February, we have received many questions and comments regarding our position and about how our services and procedures are affected. This page provides an overview of topics that may be of interest to our members and community.

Last updated: 27 February 2023

The RIPE NCC’s Position 

The RIPE NCC’s official position in relation to the war comprises the following:

RIPE NCC Executive Board Resolution on Provision of Critical Services

RIPE NCC Managing Director Article: An Open Internet Remains the Goal

RIPE NCC Managing Director’s Response to Request from Ukrainian Government

RIPE NCC Managing Director's Response to Request from Ukrainian Internet Association (UIA)

RIPE NCC Managing Director's Response to Committee of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine 

RIPE NCC Managing Director Email: Measures to Protect Ukrainian Networks

RIPE NCC Managing Director Email: Update on Measures to Protect Ukrainian Networks

RIPE NCC Managing Director's Response to Request from Ukrainian Internet Association (UIA)

RIPE NCC Chief Operations Officer Article: More Details on the 'Voluntary Registry Lock'

The RIPE NCC will only announce changes to its position or affiliation with external initiatives, campaigns or positions via the Chairman of its Executive Board or its Managing Director.

Membership Issues

We continue to follow all our procedures in the same way as we did before the outbreak of war. We treat all members equally and the same requirements are made of all members in terms of due diligence checks. If we need to make any changes to our procedures, these will be clearly communicated to all members.

We have made clear to members in Ukraine and Russia that they do not risk having their accounts closed if they are unable to make payments on time or respond to administrative requests due to the ongoing conflict or sanctions imposed on financial institutions that make timely payment impossible.

We have received many suggestions for how we might change our processes or procedures in light of the war in Ukraine. We are investigating all proposals and will come back to members with our findings. If you are a RIPE NCC member and have suggestions, you should make them via the Membership Discussion mailing list where we will see them and other members can discuss your proposal.

Keeping our members and critical services operational under these circumstances is our main focus at the moment.

Sanctions

The RIPE NCC will at all times comply fully with EU sanctions. An article clarifying this in light of the current situation is available on RIPE Labs.

The Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed to us that IP resources are considered economic resources, as defined in the EU sanctions regulation, and must be frozen for sanctioned entities.

The RIPE NCC complies with this restriction by freezing the registration (not the use) of the Internet number resources in the RIPE Database. This means that sanctioned entities cannot acquire further resources or transfer resources. However, we do not deregister their resources or terminate their Standard Service Agreement (SSA) if they are RIPE NCC members.

Finance and Billing

All members have been invoiced as normal. This has been requested by both Russian and Ukrainian members, although we have made clear to members that they do not risk having their accounts closed if they are unable to make payments in the normal timeframe. It is important to note that this does not mean that fees are waived for any of our members. All membership fees remain due. This is similar to the approach we have taken with members in Iran and Syria.

Members can pay their invoices using the methods provided on our payments page. It should be noted that our invoices are on a yearly basis, although members can choose to pay in installments (please make sure to reference debtor and invoice numbers if you do this).

Our invoices state the Euro amount that is due. Payment in other currencies is accepted but we recommend not to do this as the bank converts to Euro at the current rate which can result in underpayment or overpayment.

We do not accept payment in crypto currencies. Major banks and payment facilitators do not yet accept these types of payments and the fluctuation in value of these currencies make them problematic. We will however investigate possibilities in this area.

 If there are any changes to our billing procedure, they will be formally communicated to all members via the RIPE NCC Announce mailing list. 

Registration Services

We continue to follow all our procedures in the same way as we did before the outbreak of war. We treat all members equally and the same requirements are made of all members in terms of due diligence.

Information Services

Our position means that the information and data provided by the RIPE NCC can be trusted as authoritative and free from bias or political influence. We provide our data freely to the Internet community and others who carry out research on the Internet and how traffic is routed over it.

RIPE NCC technical analyses of the situation, as well as articles from members of the technical community, are available on RIPE Labs.

Engagement

The ENOG 19 / RIPE NCC Regional Meeting that was scheduled to take place in Moscow from 20-21 June 2022 has been postponed. The ENOG community will decide if and how events take place in future, and the RIPE NCC will support the decisions made by the community.