Press Release, 18.09.2025

Photo: Alexander Shishlov / Photo by the Yabloko Press Service

At the first session of St Petersburg’s parliament after summer vacations, the Yabloko faction proposed that Legislative Assembly deputies adopt an appeal to Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin about cancelling the blocking of calls in popular messengers WhatsApp and Telegram introduced by Roskomnadzor (Federal Service for Supervision in the Sphere of Telecom, Information Technologies and Mass Communications).

St.Petersburg residents approached Yabloko on this issue, stating that they had been restricted in their rights without any grounds and deprived of convenient and accessible means of communication with their loved ones and friends.

Citizens consider the formal pretext under which calls were blocked — “fighting fraud” — to be contrived.

“I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the argument about fighting fraud is meaningless, since the majority of fraudulent actions are committed via mobile communication,” a resident of Primorsky district in St Petersburg wrote to the Yabloko faction.

Indeed, according to official Central Bank data, fraud statistics look like this: 45.6% — through mobile phone calls; 15.7% — through messengers; 10.3% — through social networks; and 7.7% — through email.

Similar requests from city residents were received by all the Legislative Assembly factions. Yabloko proposed to the leaders of all factions to jointly submit a draft appeal to the Prime Minister, but found no support.

At the meeting of the St.Petersburg parliament on 17 September, the majority of Legislative Assembly deputies refused to include this issue on the agenda (only ten deputies voted “for” the Yabloko proposal), but Yabloko will continue to insist on cancelling the blocking of calls in messengers, believing that freedom of choice of communication platforms is a fundamental right of Russian citizens, and that the development of the domestic digital market should be based on competitive mechanisms.

The current blocking restricts citizens in their free choice of voice communication services, forces them to bear additional costs to pay for mobile phone conversations, and contributes to forming illegal competitive advantages for mobile operators.

According to Mediascope data as of July 2025, WhatsApp was used by 96.2 million Russians over 12 years old, and Telegram by 89.8 million.