Authored by Andrew Korybko via substack,

Authorities in Russia believe that Ukraine has quick access to Russian servicemen’s messages and exploits this for military purposes, which wouldn’t be possible without some degree of complicity on Telegram’s part, thus impugning its founder’s character after he denied working with foreign spooks.

The FSB claimed to have “reliable information that the Ukrainian armed forces and intelligence agencies are able to quickly obtain information posted on the Telegram messenger and use it for military purposes.” This coincides with the government allegedly throttling Telegram on the grounds that it’s not in compliance with local laws, which preceded reports that it’ll be banned on 1 April. The authorities denied that they have nay such plan but there’s no doubt that Telegram is now controversial in Russia.

Speculation about Ukraine’s access to the messages sent by Russian servicemen on that platform, which the FSB also touched upon in their two-sentence press release, is credible in light of founder Pavel Durov’s brief detention by the French authorities in 2024. Although he vehemently denied that he cut a deal with them for granting their authorities access to certain users’ messages and has since accused them of askingz him to ban conservative Romanian accounts, he might be lying and it could all be an act.

After all, criticizing the French authorities in the aftermath of his scandalous detainment could be meant to convince observers that he didn’t cut a deal with them even though he might have, or he could at least have been coerced by the American ones to that end or even voluntarily decided to help the Ukrainian ones. In any case, however it ended up happening, the FSB arguably does indeed believe that Ukraine has access to Russian servicemen’s messages and uses them for military purposes.

It would therefore be best for them to speedily replace Telegram with Russia’s Max messenger app instead, which was developed for strengthening Russia’s “digital sovereignty”. That concept refers to the trend of countries asserting their sovereignty in this sphere through regulations like banning certain sites like Russia banned Facebook, Twitter/X, and others for non-compliance with local legislation and creating their own alternatives that can’t be exploited by their adversaries. It’s a sensible policy in today’s world.

In fact, so sensible is it that some cynics speculate that the pressure that Telegram has recently come under in Russia is part of the state’s campaign to get citizens to use Max, but that still doesn’t discredit the FSB’s claim about Ukraine having quick access to Russian servicemen’s messages. Telegram is used by many of them to communicate with each other as well as by many Russian businesses to engage with their clients. It’s also a useful channel for sharing facts about Russian policy with the rest of the world.

Even in the scenario of Russia banning Telegram, it could still be used with a VPN just like Facebook, Twitter/X, and other banned sites are, which the FSB obviously knows and thus challenges the cynical speculation that it might be lying about the app as part of a ploy to get Russians to use Max instead. Accordingly, their claim about it being compromised by Ukraine is credible, and this in turn impugns Durov’s character since it wouldn’t be possible without some degree of complicity on his part.

Whatever Telegram’s fate in Russia may be, Russia and others are correct in doubting the integrity of that app and all foreign ones in general since there are credible reasons to believe that they’re exploited by adversarial intelligence agencies for hostile purposes. The solution is therefore creating national alternatives and getting citizens to use them instead for strengthening “digital sovereignty”. Some states might struggle with this, however, so their citizens would then have to choose the “lesser (foreign) evil”.