Russian authorities have begun partially restricting the operation of the Telegram messenger, which has already led to disruptions in its service.
This was reported by Kremlin-controlled media, citing sources in the IT sector and government agencies.
According to them, the first restrictions began to be applied on February 10. Messenger users in Russia are already reporting problems with sending messages and connecting to the service.
Russian authorities justify the pressure on messengers as a fight against crime, fraud and “extremist activity”.
Note that Telegram remains one of the key platforms for communication with residents of the occupied territories.
As an alternative to the popular messenger, Russian authorities are trying to promote a domestic development — the “Makh” application. In Russia, they expect that active development of domestic software will allow replacing Telegram, although they admit that part of the audience will still try to use the service through circumvention tools (VPN), as happened earlier with the social network Instagram.
Recall that in December 2025 it became known that Ukraine was added to the list of “unfriendly” states from which Russia plans to block telephone calls.