RIPE NCC and Russian Government Sign Memorandum of Understanding

The RIPE NCC and the Russian government signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in Minsk on 18 April 2017.

The MoU formalises the existing relationship between the RIPE NCC and the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications of the Russian Federation.

Specifically, it focuses on promoting the RIPE Academic Cooperation Initiative (RACI), which brings together the academic and RIPE technical communities to enhance knowledge sharing and collaboration between the two, and IPv6 deployment, including training courses for Russian RIPE NCC members and IPv6 Roadshow events in Russia.

“As one of the countries with a large RIPE NCC membership base, Russia is an important region for us to focus on in terms of supporting its individual needs”, said Axel Pawlik, Managing Director of the RIPE NCC. “At the same time, we want to encourage the Russian technical and academic communities to actively engage in the broader RIPE community so that they can share knowledge and experience with one another”.

Russian Minister Nikolay Nikiforov and RIPE NCC Managing Director Axel Pawlik sign the MoU

The MoU also stipulates an agreement between the RIPE NCC and a third party to be chosen by the Russian ministry to make use of the RIPE NCC Near Real Time Mirroring Service, a mechanism that allows RIPE NCC members to receive a stream of RIPE Database information (excluding personal or private information). The RIPE NCC has numerous agreements with members from across its service region who make use of this service.

Nikolay Nikiforov, Minister of Telecom and Mass Communications of the Russian Federation, spoke of the Russian government's efforts to develop Internet infrastructure throughout the country and emphasised the need to ensure the stability of such networks and to build knowledge about issues such as IPv6 adoption. “This is what is required by the whole global information community and we are glad to cooperate with our partners of such an important organisation as RIPE NCC, in our information society and on the digital economy that every country is trying to build”, he said.

This MoU is the latest formalised agreement for greater cooperation between the RIPE NCC and one of the many external organisations we work with, including governments, regulators, technical bodies, industry groups, law enforcement agencies, academic institutions and others. You can learn more about our external engagement with these parties in this RIPE Labs article, or see a list of the different agreements and memberships we have with external parties.