Earlier this week the Kremlin directed state-owned Russian websites to switch from foreign hosting services to Russian-owned ones and to remove any Javascript created by foreign companies. Do you think this action is intended primarily to protect Russian state-owned sites from cyberattack, or do you think this is the first step in Russia severing ties with the global internet?

I believe they might be honestly trying to prepare for an almost complete separation from the Internet. Mirroring the JS libs / storing them locally might give not break everything completely when the segregation happens – and particularly in the state-owned media, it can allow for some continuity. The rest would fail, and no-one would really care. As Vladimir wrote, it is primarily a populist gesture. 

I believe that in reality, they will just copy/"download" the JS code and declare it "theirs", whatever that would mean. It's all open source, so the copying is perfectly legit (though they might have to change the copyright headers and stuff to make it "look Russian" ... anyone knows Potemkin here? :) – and if they indeed seal off the Internet, the efforts to keep stuff at least somehow working would be very high. Given the global sanctions and failing economy, I can hardly see it as a win-win for the Russian IT industry. It will give them jobs, but I wouldn't call that a "win"...