WARSAW: Russia is pushing its Max messenger — a social media platform without encryption — onto its citizens with a massive promotion campaign and the simultaneous blocking of Whatsapp and Telegram, the country’s two most popular messenger apps.

The rollout has raised concerns among critics and digital rights groups that Moscow will use Max to surveil its citizens and further cut digital links to 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 the French company Predicta Lab, said.

Launched in 2025 by Russian social media giant VK, the app has been compared to China’s WeChat, combining social media and messaging functions with access to government services, a digital ID card system, banking and payments. It is not officially mandatory, but the authorities are making it clear that life without Max will become increasingly hard.

President Vladimir Putin has touted it as a more “secure” platform that meets Russia’s demand for “technological sovereignty.” Moscow has been pushing that agenda for years. “This is the culmination of policies aimed at creating a sovereign internet,” Marielle Wijermars, an associate professor of internet governance at Maastricht University said.

“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. Max has been pre-installed on phones and tablets sold in Russia since September.

The design is familiar and resembles Telegram, offering private messages, public channels and cute stickers.

Unlike Telegram and Whatsapp, it is also on Russia’s “white list” of approved digital services that stay online during the increasingly common forced internet blackouts that Moscow says are necessary to thwart Ukrainian retaliatory drone attacks.

Published in Dawn, March 24th, 2026