Russia announced on Wednesday that it would restrict calls made via WhatsApp and Telegram messaging services, a new turn of the screw by the authorities after the blocking, in recent years, of several Western social networks.
“To combat criminals, measures have been taken to restrict calls on these foreign messaging applications (WhatsApp and Telegram),” state news agency Ria Novosti said, citing Russia’s communications monitoring authority.
The Russian authorities accuse these messaging services, which are widely used in Russia, of facilitating fraud and “of involving Russian citizens in acts of sabotage and terrorist activities,” adds the same source.
Freedom of expression restricted
Reacting to this measure, Telegram said in a press release that it “actively fights against the misuse of its platform” and deletes “millions of harmful content every day”.
“WhatsApp is private, end-to-end encrypted messaging that resists attempts by governments to infringe on people’s right to secure communication, and that is why Russia is trying to block it for more than 100 million Russians,” said a spokesperson for WhatsApp, a subsidiary of Meta.
In recent years, Russia has increased measures restricting freedom of expression on the internet, which has long been one of the last spaces where critical voices could express themselves freely.
At the end of July, Russian President Vladimir Putin promulgated a law punishing internet searches for content classified as “extremist” and which prohibits the promotion of VPNs, systems widely used in Russia to circumvent censorship.
Meta “extremist”
Since 2024, the YouTube video platform has only been accessible in Russia via a VPN. And since 2022, the Facebook and Instagram social networks of the American group Meta, declared “extremist” in Russia, have also been blocked.
In July, a Russian MP, Anton Gorelkin, affirmed that WhatsApp, also owned by Meta, should prepare “to leave the Russian market” because there was “a high probability that the application would soon be added to the list of applications coming from countries considered “unfriendly” by Moscow. These statements had raised fears of an upcoming blocking of WhatsApp.
Courier scams are very common in Russia. The authorities also accuse the Ukrainian security services of recruiting Russians via these applications to commit acts of sabotage in the country in exchange for a promise of remuneration.
