Press Release, 03.04.2026

Photo by Sergei Konkov, Kommersant

Artur Gaiduk, leader of Pskov Yabloko and a deputy of the regional Legislative Assembly, has received responses from the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) and the Russian Ministry of Digital Development. The letters were sent to Gaiduk in reply to his parliamentary inquiries of 15 February, in which he had asked for an explanation of the reasons behind the throttling of Telegram and requested a review of the “undue advantages” afforded to the national MAX messenger. In their responses, both agencies stated that they had nothing to report. The MAX messenger is not mentioned in either reply.

In his inquiry of 15 February, Artur Gaiduk had asked the antimonopoly service to assess the throttling of Telegram in conjunction with the preferential treatment given to the MAX messenger, and to examine whether this was leading to a restriction of competition in the communications services and digital advertising markets. The deputy listed the measures which, in his view, create competitive advantages for what is being called the “national messenger”: mandatory pre-installation on all new smartphones sold in Russia, its use as one of the channels for obtaining electronic signatures, integration with the Gosuslugi (state services) portal, and inclusion in the so-called “white list” of the resouces that are not subject for blockings.

In her response, FAS Deputy Head Adilya Vyaseleva cited the federal law on information and a Russian government decree, under which an authorised body may restrict access to resources containing information whose dissemination is prohibited in the Russian Federation.

On this basis, the deputy head of FAS concluded, that the circumstances set out in the inquiry of Pskov regional deputy Artur Gaiduk could not be examined for compliance with the requirements of the federal law on protection of competition. MAX and the deputy’s arguments concerning the artificially created privileges afforded to it are not mentioned in the response at all.

Artur Gaiduk also received a reply to his inquiry about the throttling of Telegram from the Ministry of Digital Development. Ekaterina Larina, Director of the Department for the Development of Mass Communications and International Cooperation, stated that “the decision on the gradual throttling of the service was taken by Roskomnadzor (the Federal Service for Supervision in the Sphere of Telecom, Information and Mass Communications) in connection with non-compliance with the requirements of Russian legislation”.

Gaiduk had asked the Ministry to share the results of the blocking of calls via Telegram and WhatsApp* — introduced by Roskomnadzor in August 2025 — and to explain what effect it had had on combating fraud, extremism, and terrorism.

The ministry’s response stated that, according to Ministry of Internal Affairs data, more than 150,000 crimes had been committed using Telegram since 2022, and that following the decision to restrict voice call functionality in messaging applications, the number of crimes had fallen by 23.7%.

It should be noted that, according to official Central Bank statistics for 2024, in 45.6% of cases fraudsters attempted to access citizens’ funds via telephone calls and text messages, and in only 15.6% of cases via messaging applications.

*owned by Meta, which has been designated an extremist organisation and is banned in Russia