The Kremlin’s Telegram Dilemma

Telegram messenger app on a phone screen, photo by Focal Foto, 2023

The Kremlin has waged a sustained assault on internet freedoms in Russia throughout the full-scale war. In recent months, this effort has focused on Telegram, a widely used messaging platform. Telegram is deeply embedded in Russia’s information ecosystem in general, but it is also extensively used by troops at the front, pro-war volunteer networks, and the very propaganda outlets on which the state itself relies. 

The blocking of Telegram is almost universally unpopular. Yet Roskomnadzor, the agency responsible for monitoring and censoring Russia’s media, has remained relentless in tightening restrictions. Data from the Open Observatory of Network Interference, an independent research group based in Rome, show that interference intensified sharply by March 20 and had reached nearly 100 percent by April 10. Since mid-March, Telegram has effectively ceased to function in Russia without a VPN. In 2018, a similar attempt to ban the app, after it refused to hand over encryption keys, led to widespread disruption of unrelated online services and was ultimately abandoned in 2020.

This time the authorities cite Telegram’s refusal to comply with Russian data-localization laws and its failure to remove what they classify as extremist content. But investigative journalists point to a different motive: the Kremlin’s push for a state-backed alternative, Max, an app widely seen as fully transparent to the country’s security services. In theory, this gives the authorities a decisive advantage: a communication environment fully aligned with state interests.

In practice, however, this advantage is undermined by the platform’s weaknesses. For months, pro-war channels have been filled with complaints about the authorities “shooting themselves in the foot.” This is not without reason. Pro-war voices have generally proven more successful than liberal ones at attracting audiences on Telegram, which tend to perform better on YouTube.

Telegram’s founder Pavel Durov says these efforts have done little to curb usage. 65 million users continue to access the platform from Russia via VPNs. Attempts to block the platform have at times disrupted unrelated services, even triggering temporary outages in payment systems, he noted. Durov’s number shows a considerable drop in usage. Earlier this year, Telegram became Russia’s most popular messaging app, overtaking WhatsApp and reaching 96 million users who accessed it at least once a month. 

Even staunch pro-Putin commentators acknowledge that Max is unreliable and struggles to attract organic user growth. Its owner, VK, claims the app has reached 110 million users worldwide, though this has not been independently verified. Despite the suppression of Telegram, as well as WhatsApp, Viber, and other international platforms, users often avoid it. Officials themselves reportedly purchase separate smartphones just to install Max, effectively treating it as spyware. All of this suggests that Russian audiences, regardless of political leaning, still value privacy. 

As is often the case in the Putin system, no single agency drives an important policy to its conclusion. In certain situations, though only in certain ones, Putin allows subordinate centers of power to compete, testing whose push proves stronger and how the public reacts. In the digital sphere, formal responsibility lies with Roskomnadzor and the Ministry of Digital Development of Russia (Mintsyfry), which oversee internet regulation and connectivity but are not in charge of security. The Federal Security Service, by contrast, is responsible for security but not for managing digital infrastructure.

This division of roles creates a familiar dynamic. Public frustration over restrictions on messaging apps is allowed to build up. It is largely directed at Roskomnadzor and the Ministry of Digital Development, while the FSB is understood to be the real driver of the policy. Within the system, there is little doubt that much of the digital bureaucracy opposes the measures, even as it is tasked with implementing them. For now, before the final call Putin appears willing to allow the pressure to mount, the agencies to compete, and the political costs to reveal themselves.

“There is virtually nothing that can counter the influence of the FSB, and no one would dare ask Putin for leniency,” reports Faridaily, an independent émigré outlet, which covers the Kremlin. The security services, it adds, are exploiting wartime conditions and shaping the president’s decisions. Given his limited grasp of internet technologies, their view tends to be decisive.

According to Faridaily’s sources, only one factor could alter this course. Putin might relent if, ahead of the State Duma elections due in September, the ratings of parties competing with United Russia were to rise sharply, especially those of the Communist Party. 

One more characteristic feature of the Putin system is evident in the current campaign against Telegram. Investigative journalist Andrei Zakharov has shown that the Kremlin’s push for Max is driven by vested business interests, not just by security concerns. The authorities speak of the need for a “national messenger,” a law is passed, and the government designates Max as that messenger. The result is the impression of a state-owned product, even though Max belongs to VK, which is itself controlled by interests tied to Gazprom and members of Putin’s inner circle.

“VK’s current shareholder register is not public,” writes Zakharov, “but its principal owner is widely understood to be Yury Kovalchuk, Putin’s close associate and financial confidant.” Zakharov has also reported that at least five percent is held by Mikhail Shelomov, Putin’s cousin’s son, a relatively obscure figure, a photographer from Sankt-Petersburg whom he describes as a nominal owner, meaning that the stake belongs to the president himself.

One may or may not agree with how journalists connect the dots. But the people behind the campaign explain the seriousness of the effort to restrict Telegram and to circumvent tools such as VPNs. According to The Bell, the agency responsible is the FSB’s Second Directorate – officially, the Service for the Protection of the Constitutional Order and the Fight Against Terrorism. Control over the Russian internet has reportedly been transferred to this directorate since at least last summer. It was officers from this directorate who, according to multiple investigations, were involved in the poisoning of Alexei Navalny and Vladimir Kara-Murza.

A representative of the FSB’s Second Directorate was present at a recent meeting at the Ministry of Digital Development of Russia, a source in Russia’s IT industry told The Bell – something he said he had not witnessed in decades. The encounter came as a shock to tech executives, who had long been accustomed to the ministry acting as a defender of the industry.

The popular pushback against the suppression of internet freedom – and messaging tools in particular – is real. For months, the Russian segment of the internet has been awash with complaints and jokes about life without digital connectivity. Such mass expressions of discontent may not be enough to challenge the authorities directly, but they steadily erode trust in them, as the scholar of online protest Alexandra Arkhipova observes.

The Kremlin is watching these reactions closely. According to sources cited by Bloomberg, the FSB’s push for tighter control has already prompted some senior officials to warn of the political and economic risks of restricting internet access. Their concern is that excessive pressure could prove counterproductive. This may slow the rollout of harsher measures, and the Kremlin may end up allowing Telegram to continue operating in Russia, Blomberg’s sources said.

A source cited by Forbes’s Russian edition said that a decision has been made to ease the pressure by loosening restrictions on Telegram. The move, the source suggested, is intended to defuse mounting tensions fueled by tax changes, rising prices, and the cumulative effect of ongoing digital blockages. As noted, this has happened before.

For now, the clamp-down points not to a clear resolution but to a familiar pattern of hesitation and adjustment. The Russian state still cannot quite decide whether Telegram is a threat to be suppressed or a tool too useful to lose.

Maxim Trudolyubov edits The Russia File, the Kennan Institute’s publication, and writes on Russian politics, society, and institutions.