Meduza’s daily newsletter: Friday, September 20, 2024 The uncertain future of Telegram in Ukraine, journalists confirm deaths of 70,000 Russian soldiers, and Kadyrov sends two Cybertrucks to Ukraine

The uncertain future of Telegram in Ukraine

Ukraine’s parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, announced on Friday that the country’s National Security and Defense Council has banned the use of Telegram on official devices by government employees, military personnel, and other security and defense workers. Exceptions will be made for those who use the app for official duties.

The announcement followed a meeting on Thursday in which representatives from the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) and the Ukrainian military's General Staff said that Russia actively uses Telegram for cyberattacks, phishing, spreading malware, and targeting missile strikes. Military intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov also alleged that Russian intelligence can access users’ personal communications.

The new policy comes amid the latest round of a years-long national debate over Telegram’s role in Ukrainian society and whether it poses a security risk. After the arrest of the app’s founder, Pavel Durov, in Paris last month, Ukrainian lawmakers began working on legislation that would restrict the app’s use in the country. But with more than 70 percent of citizens reportedly using Telegram to get their news, regulating it — or banning it if its developers fail to comply — could have far-reaching consequences. Meduza asked journalist and researcher Konstantin Skorkin to explain how a messenger app founded by a Russian national remains so popular in Ukraine, why it makes Kyiv nervous, and whether the authorities could feasibly ban the app (as they’ve done with other Russian social media platforms).

How did Telegram get so popular in Ukraine?

As late as 2018, according to Skorkin, many media professionals in Ukraine were dismissive of Telegram, writing it off as a tool that could only be useful in autocratic countries where speaking openly requires anonymity. Already, however, a network of anonymous Telegram channels had begun gaining popularity in Ukraine. Some of them, such as “Legitimniy” and “Rezident,” have over a million followers today.

These channels, which billed themselves as Ukrainian news sources with insider information and frequently cited each other, were filled with “Kremlin narratives” from the beginning, according to an analyst from a Ukrainian infosec NGO. They also mostly supported Volodymyr Zelensky in Ukraine’s 2019 election, the analyst says — “but as relations between Zelensky and the Kremlin [...] deteriorated, he began to face increasing criticism [from the channels].”

In February 2021, the SBU announced that 12 popular Telegram channels, including the two mentioned above, were controlled by Russian intelligence. But the genie was out of the bottle: the audiences of anonymous Telegram channels in Ukraine continued to grow. Meanwhile, politicians and journalists began creating channels, and media outlets began referencing government agencies’ channels as official sources (still a widespread practice today). Opposition figures, such as pro-Kremlin former lawmaker Viktor Medvedchuk and former President Petro Poroshenko, also took advantage of the platform.

But the real breakthrough came after the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, when Telegram became an essential way for Ukrainians to stay informed about the war. By 2023, 72 percent of Ukraine’s news consumers reported getting their news from Telegram, compared to just 20 percent in 2021.

Who wants to outlaw Telegram?

The first major call to ban Telegram in Ukraine came in 2020, when Viktoriya Podhorna, a Verkhovna Rada deputy from the ruling Servant of the People party, wrote on Facebook: “What do you think about the idea of shutting down Telegram — given its background, so to speak?” In the comments, then-parliamentarian Hanna Hopko, a member of the pro-European Self Reliance party, supported the idea, writing: “Ban [Telegram], don’t coddle it.”

The initiative gained steam after the start of the full-scale war, when any real or perceived ties to Russia became a more sensitive issue. One outspoken advocate of a Telegram ban was Oleksiy Danilov, the now-former secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council. In November 2023, he said that if the Ukrainian authorities ever received evidence of the app’s “vulnerability” from the “relevant agencies,” the government’s response would “not be delayed.”

In February 2024, Yaroslav Yurchyshyn, the head of the Verkhovna Rada’s Freedom of Speech Committee, announced that the Ukrainian authorities ordered Pavel Durov to curb the spread of pro-Russian disinformation on Telegram, but that Durov had ignored the demand. After this, top security officials, including military intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov, began speaking publicly about Telegram as a potential national security threat.

In March 2024, Verkhovna Rada deputy Mykola Kniazhytskyi drafted a bill requiring Telegram channels to disclose their owners and funding sources at the request of Ukraine’s State Committee for Television and Radio-Broadcasting. The bill also stated that Telegram must prohibit the dissemination of information that’s illegal in Ukraine, from pornography to justifications of Russian aggression.

After Pavel Durov’s arrest, Mykyta Poturaiev, the head of the Rada’s Humanitarian and Information Policy Committee, sparked another round of debate about the messenger. Writing on Facebook, Poturaiev blasted Telegram for allowing the free distribution of information he considers destructive: “If this is freedom of speech, then I’m an enemy of this freedom.”

An updated version of Kniazhytskyi’s draft bill is now in the works. Lawmakers plan to require Telegram to comply with existing Ukrainian legislation and cooperate with the authorities as well as to disclose the owners of anonymous Telegram channels and prove there are no “FSB agents, agents of other Russian government structures, or citizens of the aggressor country” among them.

Is a ban really in the cards?

It’s unclear what the final bill will look like — or whether it will be passed at all. If it does pass, Ukrainian Telegram channels will likely need to obtain licenses for their activities like media outlets, according to Yaroslav Yurchyshyn, and Telegram will probably be required to open an official office in Ukraine.

Whether the Ukrainian authorities will ban Telegram if it refuses to cooperate is hard to predict. Several factors could determine the outcome, including whether the E.U. tightens its own regulations after the French investigation against Durov. At the moment, it seems likely that Ukraine’s government would have neither the political will nor the technical capability to block Telegram.

However, Yurchyshyn has told the media that he believes the most likely scenario would be “the introduction of stricter Telegram regulations in the E.U., which would then be mirrored in Ukraine.” He continued: “The SBU, the Main Intelligence Directorate (HUR), and the Cyber Police have long since gathered enough evidence to [justify] restricting the platform’s activities in Ukraine.”

We got The Beet. Don’t miss Meduza’s weekly newsletter (separate from the one you’re reading here)!

☢️ Catch the latest issue → Scarred by Soviet-era nuclear testing, Kazakhstan is poised to embrace atomic energy — with help from Russia (15-min read)

Meduza’s feature reporting

• 🔍 A 25-year-old conspiracy theory about the FSB lives on
• ⏳ After waiting years for social housing, Russians are losing their place in line to veterans of the Kremlin’s war against Ukraine
• 💥 The West could lift Ukraine’s long-range missile restrictions any day now. Are Russia’s civilian bomb shelters ready?
• ✍ Russian officials draft ‘professional standards’ for writers that could ease labor relations (unless they’re imposed on publishers)

The news in brief

• 📜 Russia creates registry of countries that ‘impose destructive neoliberal beliefs’ and adds Taiwan — whose independence Moscow doesn’t recognize
• 🚓 Poland says it’s arrested four suspects in connection with March attack on Navalny ally Leonid Volkov (which Anti-Corruption Foundation says former Yukos executive Leonid Nevzlin orchestrated)
• 🪦 Mediazona and BBC News Russian have confirmed the deaths of 70,000 Russian soldiers in Ukraine (more ordinary contract soldiers have died than convicts and draftees in recent months)
• 🚫 Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, commenting on proposal to ban ‘childfree’ movement, says ‘everything that impedes an increase in the birth rate should disappear from our lives’
• ✝️ Aide to Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin calls for banning schools from teaching evolution (and finds support from ‘Orthodox oligarch’ Konstantin Malofeev)
• 🛻 Chechnya Governor Ramzan Kadyrov says he sent two Tesla Cybertrucks to the front in Ukraine (yesterday he claimed Elon Musk remotely disabled one of his Cybertrucks) 
• 🇺🇦 Ukrainian Foreign Ministry responds to Polish foreign minister’s suggestion to put Crimea under U.N. mandate: ‘Crimea is Ukraine. Period.’

No country can be free without independent media. In January 2023, the Russian authorities outlawed Meduza, banning our work in the country our colleagues call home. Just supporting Meduza carries the risk of criminal prosecution for Russian nationals, which is why we’re turning to our international audience for help. Your assistance makes it possible for thousands of people in Russia to read Meduza and stay informed. Consider a small but recurring contribution to provide the most effective support. Donate here.