Telegram is widely used by the Russian armed forces, and the platform is strictly regulated by the Kremlin.
ADVERTISEMENTTelegram co-founder Pavel Durov’s arrest in France on Saturday could complicate Russian military plans in Ukraine, experts claim.
Telegram is very popular among Russian speakers and plays a crucial role in the war in Ukraine, both for the operations on the ground and in spreading Moscow’s narrative.
According to the Institute for the Study of War think tank, it is “the main alternative to official communications for Russian military personnel in Ukraine”.
"It's not just a news source, but it's a kind of key messenger that is used for coordination of action at different levels, to store videos, to share large files and all this kind of things, and you've got a lot of channels more or less directly connected with the Kremlin or with the Department of Defence of Russia," Christine Dugoin-Clément, a researcher at the Sorbonne Business School, told Euronews.
Telegram is an encrypted chat that avoided being put under Russian government control in 2018. However, according to experts, the Kremlin has managed to manipulate it by introducing stricter legislation regarding its activities.
"The owners of channels that have gathered more than 10,000 followers have to provide information to Roskomnadzor, which is more or less the organisation in charge of controlling all the media and social networks," Dugoin-Clément said.
"In the same law, they are explaining that if you've got a channel that more than 500,000 users follow, you have to provide all the information on your users if Roskomnadzoror or the FSB is asking for it. So there is not exactly a control, but let's say it is a kind of cooperation."
Will Russians abandon Telegram?
With its CEO in prison in an EU country, Russian forces may start leaving Telegram, which, in the extreme scenario, could also be totally blocked in the country.
This uncertainty will likely impact Russian frontline operations, even if it seems unlikely that the French authorities could disclose the information in the encrypted chats.
"They could try to do so. It would be illegal, because at the EU level there is no decision about being allowed to read messages," Axel Legay of the Ecole Polytechnique de Louvain told Euronews.
"Three months ago, the EU could not reach an agreement on this. So yeah, they could try this with secret services or whatever. But I really don't think that's that's the main problem now."
Durov’s detention is turning into a diplomatic incident between France and Russia. The Russian embassy in Paris has accused France of refusing to cooperate, but French President Macron insisted that the arrest was not a "political decision".