Roskomnadzor Plans to Continue Its Fight Against Telegram

The Russian Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media (Roskomnadzor) does not plan to completely block access to the Telegram messenger in Russia, as it is technically impossible. However, the agency intends to continue its efforts to disrupt specific functions of the service in order to reduce its user base.

Alexander Zharov, the head of Roskomnadzor, announced that new technical solutions will be introduced to further decrease the number of Telegram users by impairing certain features of the messenger. He shared this information with journalists from kp40.ru during a press conference.

According to Zharov, while a full block of Telegram in Russia is not feasible, Roskomnadzor has tools to disrupt the operation of some of the service’s key features. “We are achieving a reduction in the number of users because not all functions work fully throughout the day. This is fundamental. We intend to continue along this path—further increasing the degradation of specific features and reducing the number of users. In the coming months, we will propose new technical solutions that will help us move forward in this direction,” Zharov stated.

Background on the Telegram Block

On April 16 of this year, Roskomnadzor began blocking Telegram after the service’s operators refused to provide the FSB with encryption keys to decode user messages. On the same day, the agency started blocking millions of IP addresses belonging to Google, Amazon, and Microsoft, which Telegram used to bypass the restrictions.

At the end of May, Roskomnadzor demanded that Apple stop distributing Telegram in Russia through the App Store, threatening to block Apple’s services in the country if the company did not comply.