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Russia is pushing its Max messenger, a social media platform without encryption, onto its citizens through a massive promotional campaign while simultaneously restricting WhatsApp and Telegram, the country’s two most popular messaging apps.
The rollout has alarmed critics and digital rights groups who say Moscow intends to use Max to surveil its citizens and deepen the digital divide between Russia and the West.
“Any data that passes through this application can be considered to be in the hands of its owner, and in this case, the hands of the Russian state,” cybersecurity researcher Baptiste Robert, CEO of French company Predicta Lab, told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Launched in March 2025 by VK, the company behind Russia’s dominant social network VKontakte, Max has been compared to China’s WeChat. The app combines messaging, social media functions, access to government services, a digital ID card system, and banking and payments in a single platform.
President Vladimir Putin signed a law in June establishing a “national multifunctional messenger” and has publicly touted Max as a more “secure” platform that meets Russia’s demand for “technological sovereignty.”
Digital Development Minister Maksut Shadayev has championed the app at state events, and state television devoted primetime coverage to a briefing in which he described Max as “a fully Russian messenger” and praised it as being on par with foreign competitors.
Despite Max not being officially mandatory, critics say the pressure on citizens is anything but subtle. Schools have moved all communication with parents to the platform, large businesses have pushed employees to download it, and celebrities and popular bloggers are migrating their content to Max to build its credibility.
Dmitry Zakharchenko, founder of Russian analytics agency GRFN, compared the promotional drive to Soviet propaganda billboards. The app reached more than 100 million users in March, according to the service itself.
Max has also been added to Russia’s “white list” of approved digital services that remain accessible during the country’s increasingly frequent internet blackouts, which Moscow says are necessary to counter Ukrainian retaliatory drone attacks. WhatsApp and Telegram are not on that list.
The app has been pre-installed on all phones and tablets sold in Russia since September. Russia’s domestic app store, RuStore, is now also mandatory on Apple devices.
Unlike Telegram and WhatsApp, Max does not use end-to-end encryption, and its terms of use state that user data is stored exclusively on servers in Russia. Its privacy policy explicitly states that user data can be handed over to authorities upon request.
“This is the culmination of policies aimed at creating a sovereign internet,” Marielle Wijermars, an associate professor of internet governance at Maastricht University, told AFP. “Russia wants to restructure the internet to better control what is published,” including “by migrating all Russians to platforms that are more state-controlled,” she added.
The app collects metadata, including messages, contacts, IP addresses, and device information, the Budushcheye political movement warned on Telegram. “Max is not a messenger but a digital trap we are being driven into,” the movement said.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has denied any plans to block or slow down Telegram, but users regularly report disruptions to both Telegram and WhatsApp. Russia began restricting calls on WhatsApp and Telegram in August, accusing the foreign-owned platforms of failing to share information with law enforcement in cases involving fraud and terrorism.
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