Where do Russians get uncensored information about Ukraine?

Before Russia invaded Ukraine, Russian journalist Farida Rustamova used Telegram for only one thing: to communicate with her friends.

But as authorities have shut down media outlets that diverted from the official line, including the publications that Rustamova was writing for, she started uploading her articles to Telegram. His publications — in which he has written about the consolidation of Russian elites around President Vladimir Putin and the reaction of state media employees to an on-air protest — have already amassed more than 22,000 subscribers.

“This is one of the few channels left where you can receive information,” he said in a Telegram call.

As Russia has silenced independent media outlets and banned platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, Telegram has become the most important channel for unrestricted access to information. Since the beginning of the war, it has been the most downloaded app in Russia, with around 4.4 million downloads, according to Sensor Tower, a company that analyzes data. (There have also been 124 million Telegram downloads recorded in Russia since January 2014, according to Sensor Tower)

“Telegram is the only place in Russia where people can freely exchange opinions and information, even though the Kremlin has endeavored to infiltrate Telegram channels,” said Ilya Shepelin, who used to cover the media for the now-closed independent television channel Rain, and who now writes a blog criticizing the war.

After the closure of the independent radio station Echo de Moscow, its deputy editor-in-chief, Tatiana Felgengauer, said her Telegram audience has doubled. And after Russian authorities blocked access to the popular Russian news site Meduza in early March, its Telegram subscriptions doubled to nearly 1.2 million.

“Here I get the news,” said Dmitri Ivanov, who is studying computer science at a university in Moscow. He said he relies on Telegram to see “the same media that I trust and those whose sites I read before.”

Opponents of the war use the platform for everything from organizing anti-war protests to sharing Western media reports. In March, The New York Times launched its own Telegram channel to ensure that readers in the region “can continue to access an accurate account of world events,” the company said in a statement.

But the freedom that has allowed the free exchange of news and opinions has also made Telegram a haven for misinformation, far-right propaganda and hate speech.

Propagandists have their own popular channels: Vladimir Solovyov, host of a primetime television program that every week presents strong criticism of Ukraine, has one million subscribers. Russia's pro-war channels abound, many of which are operated by unidentified users.

State media, such as Tass and RIA News, also disseminate their information on Telegram.

Telegram has also opened the door to those who criticize President Vladimir Putin from the right, the hardliners who urge the Kremlin to act more.

Yuri Podolyaka, a military analyst who often repeats the line of government when he appears on the popular channel that operates the state, Channel One, has a markedly different approach to the videos he posts on Telegram.

He says that pro-Russia allies in southeastern Ukraine do not receive enough equipment. The government is too slow to set up occupation governments in the cities it has captured. And the refugees from Ukraine are asking in vain for the 120 dollars that Putin promised to be paid.

“This is not just a war that happens along the lines of combat, this is a war for the minds of people,” he said in a recently released video for his more than 1.6 million followers.

Igor I. Strelkov, a veteran of the Russian army and former Minister of Defense of the so-called Donetsk People's Republic, has attracted more than 250,000 followers to his Telegram channel where he discusses the problems of the strategy used in the war, which provides a counterweight to government propaganda that claims that war is taking place to perfection.

“I doubt that, after losing the first golden month of the war, our forces will manage to surround and destroy the Ukrainian force in the Donbas,” he said in a video released this week, acknowledging that for some his views could be seen as treason. “Unfortunately, I see the Ukrainian military command acting more competently than the Russian one.”

In fact, the word “war”, which has been banned in Russia to refer to events in Ukraine, frequently appears on Telegram among the most personal and partisan views expressed by both supporters and opponents.

One of the most enthusiastic advocates is Ramzan Kadyrov, the warlike leader of Chechnya, whose Telegram channel has grown from 300,000 pre-war followers to nearly two million. He frequently posts videos of his troops besieging Mariupol, and often shows dubious military methods, such as standing in an open window when firing a machine gun at an invisible enemy.

On the internet, Kadyrov was categorically nicknamed a “Tiktok Warrior” after, in a series of images that were supposed to show a visit to Ukraine, a photograph was spread in which he appears praying at the gas station of a brand that only exists in Russia.

Why doesn't the Kremlin simply ban Telegram, as it has done with so many other independent news sources? It already did, or tried, in 2018, after the company challenged government orders to allow Russian security services to access its users' data.

But the government did not have the technical means to block access to the app and it remained largely available to Russian users. By 2020, the government had lifted the ban, saying Telegram had agreed to several conditions, including improving efforts to block terrorism and extremist content.

Instead of blocking Telegram, the Kremlin tries to control the narrative there, not only through its own channels but also by paying for publications, said Shepelin, the media analyst. The number of subscribers to official or hardline channels makes the audience of opponents pale.

Pavel Chikov, head of the human rights group Agora Human Rights Group, which has represented Telegram in Russia as a lawyer, said the company may have maintained its operation in Russia until now because the country's authorities find it useful to spread the idea that they have certain ties to Telegram and its founder, Pavel V. Durov, “whether or not it is true”.

Chikov says he doesn't think Telegram provides sensitive communications information to the Russian government or others because, if he did, he said, “people all over the world would stop using it.”

But security experts have warned, with alarm, the exposure that Telegram users could have. Messages, videos, voice memos and photos that are exchanged in the app are not end-to-end encrypted by default and are stored on the company's servers. That makes them vulnerable to electronic piracy, to being required by the government or being reviewed by a dissident employee, said Matthew D. Green, an expert in privacy technologies and an associate professor at Johns Hopkins University.

“Such a service is incredibly juicy as it is targeted by intelligence agencies, both Russian and other agencies,” Green said.

Telegram has said that the data stored on its servers is encrypted and that its top priority is the protection of users' privacy. But Green and other experts said Telegram's approach makes communication through the app less secure compared to other messaging services like Signal.

Kevin Rothrock, deputy editor of the English version of Meduza, said he was concerned about how easy it was for someone with bad intentions to know private information through Telegram.

“You can see who is commenting, who is in group chats, people's phone numbers,” he said. “There is a rich database.”

Telegram did not respond to requests for comment on its policies and security.

Telegram is operated by Durov, a Russian exile who founded it together with his brother, Nikolai, in 2013 and now operates from Dubai.

The brothers had created one of the most popular social media sites in Russia, but Pavel sold his share in 2013 and fled the country after refusing to give the government private data on anti-Russia protesters in Ukraine. (It is not clear whether Nikolai also sold his stake or where he lives.)

Durov has said little in public about the war. In early March, he went to Telegram to remind his followers why he left Russia. He also said that his mother had Ukrainian roots and that he had many relatives in Ukraine, so the conflict was “personal” for him.

At the beginning of the war, he said the app would consider whether to suspend service in Russia and Ukraine to avoid a flood of unverified information. Within hours, after the scandal, Durov reversed the plan.

Perhaps one of the biggest risks for Russians who rely on Telegram for access to independent journalism is that the company's shares seem to be, for the most part, in the hands of one man.

“The key question is whether you trust Pavel Durov or not,” said Chihkov, the rights lawyer.

“We all want Telegram to behave well with us,” Rothrock said. “There are a lot of eggs in that basket.”

© The New York Times 2022