Roskomnadzor sent information to telecom operators today at 11:27 Moscow time about restricting access to the Telegram messenger.
Its creator, Pavel Durov, had previously refused to cooperate with Russian law enforcement agencies and transfer keys to the intelligence services to decrypt secret chats, which were found to be used by terrorists in several cases.
“Roskomnadzor received a decision from the Tagansky District Court to restrict access in Russia to the Internet resources of the organizer of information dissemination on the Internet, Telegram Messenger Limited Liability Partnership.
In this regard, information about these Internet resources was sent to telecom operators on Monday, April 16, in order to restrict access,” says a message on the official website.
Popular private channels on Telegram encourage users to install programs to bypass the block, promising to continue working.
Russian authorities have already begun to announce a transition from Telegram to other platforms. Thus, the Investigative Committee channel announced a “move” to the Tam-Tam messenger created by the Mail.ru group.
Advisor to the President of the Russian Federation German Klimenko previously said that he would use ICQ.
Pavel Durov, who lives abroad, is known to have stated that maintaining the secrecy of correspondence remains a priority for Telegram. According to Durov, the Russian market is only a small share of messenger users, and therefore he refuses to cooperate with the law enforcement agencies of the Russian Federation.