Experts from the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ took part in the Summer (Vacation) School on the Digital Transformation of the EAEU Legal Space, which took place at MGIMO University of the Russian Foreign Ministry from June 29 to July 4.
This year, the educational program brought together more than 30 participants, including law students and prospective law applicants who had reached the final stage of the All-Russian High School Academic Law Competition. The summer school attracted attendees from across the country: alongside participants from Moscow and the Moscow Region, students from the Kursk, Voronezh, Tomsk, Ryazan, Tula, Saratov, Ivanovo, Kirov, and Bryansk regions, as well as from the Republic of Bashkortostan and the Republic of Mordovia also took part in the event.
“The summer school is a unique platform for students with a passion for law to immerse themselves in today’s most pressing legal issues and work alongside leading experts to develop effective approaches and solutions. Each year, our team strives to offer topics that are not only relevant and practical but also engaging. Today, integration and cooperation among the EAEU member states are of paramount importance, particularly in the context of rapid digitalization,” noted Nikita Molchakov, Dean of the International Law School at MGIMO University and the developer of the summer school project.
Andrey Vorobyev, Director of the Coordination Center, delivered a presentation on Internet Governance (IG), highlighting Russia’s role in global digital diplomacy and the scale of youth engagement in this field. He shared impressive figures illustrating the growth of both international and national internet governance platforms. The 2025 Internet Governance Forum (IGF) brought together more than 9,000 participants from 170 countries and featured over 260 sessions. Meanwhile, the Russian Internet Governance Forum (RIGF), held in April 2026, welcomed more than 600 in-person participants and over 5,000 online attendees, with 67 experts addressing nine thematic sessions.
A significant part of Andrey Vorobyev’s presentation focused on engaging the younger generation in the global Internet governance ecosystem, which now features more than 150 regional youth initiatives worldwide, including the Coordination Center’s local educational programs such as the Youth Council and the Summer School on Internet Governance, with applications for the latter open through July 10.
“The Coordination Center and MGIMO University have enjoyed a long-standing and productive partnership. This year, MGIMO University has become a co-organizer of the Summer School on Internet Governance, a program that we are holding for the seventh time. Participants who successfully complete the main stage will receive an MGIMO certificate of advanced training,” Andrey Vorobyev noted, encouraging attendees to take part in the Coordination Center’s youth initiatives.
Vadim Mikhailov, Infrastructure Consultant and Technical Expert at the Coordination Center, presented a lecture, Domain Addressing Principles, Internationalization, and Security Issues. He provided an in-depth overview of the architecture of the Domain Name System (DNS), explained the principles of domain delegation, and reviewed the history and technical characteristics of internationalized domain names (IDNs), which enable the use of national alphabets in domain names. The expert paid special attention to cybersecurity, explaining the risks posed by homoglyph attacks and phishing schemes, in which malicious actors register visually similar domain names to mislead users. He also outlined practical measures for handling these threats at the levels of international regulators, domain registries, and software developers.
Maria Kolesnikova, Chief Analyst at the Coordination Center, delivered a presentation, Cyrillic in Domain and Email Addressing. Her report examined the global evolution of the domain name space, including the development of internationalized domain names (IDNs) and email address internationalization (EAI) using Cyrillic characters. She emphasized that the .РФ domain continues to maintain its position as the world’s first and largest Cyrillic top-level domain while actively expanding its linguistic diversity: since 2025, 26 additional characters have been introduced to support the 18 official languages of the peoples of Russia, enabling the registration of over 2,000 domain names using characters from Tatar, Bashkir, Yakut, and other languages.
Maria Kolesnikova also highlighted the concept of Universal Acceptance, which ensures that all valid domain names and email addresses function correctly across internet-enabled software and services. She further explored the relationship between linguistic heritage preservation and artificial intelligence advancement. As a practical resource for developers and businesses, she presented the Support.RF project, which allows for testing services for compatibility with multilingual addressing and helps implement digital inclusivity standards.
“It is essential for us that the summer school program includes meetings with key industry stakeholders. We are especially grateful to the experts from the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ, who generously shared their expertise with the school participants. We highly value the partnership established between MGIMO and the Coordination Center, particularly in the context of educating future specialists through the International Law School’s International Law and Legal Regulation of Information Technologies program. Next year, students enrolled in this program will undertake specialized internships, and we hope that representatives of the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ will provide them with an opportunity to gain first-hand experience of the Center’s activities,’ said Yekaterina Abrosimova, Acting Head of MGIMO’s Department of Innovative Jurisprudence and Information Law, Candidate of Legal Sciences, and Associate Professor, as she concluded the series of lectures delivered by the Coordination Center experts.
