Russia targets WhatsApp and pushes new 'super-app' as internet blackouts grow

Marina, a 45-year-old freelance copywriter, has relied on WhatsApp for her work and personal life for years.

But one day last month that abruptly changed when a call to a colleague did not go through properly. They tried Telegram - another messaging app popular in Russia - but that did not work either.

She was one of millions of Russians facing new restrictions imposed in mid-August by Russia's media regulator, Roskomnadzor, on calls made through the two platforms - the country's most popular apps.

The timing coincides with the rollout of a new "national messenger" app known as Max and created by a Russian firm closely controlled by the Kremlin.

Monthly user numbers of WhatsApp and Telegram are estimated to be 97 and 90 million respectively — in a country of 143 million people.

From parents' chats to tenants' groups, much of daily life runs through them. WhatsApp - whose owner, Meta, is designated an extremist organisation in Russia - is especially popular with older people because of how easy it is to register and use.

In some parts of Russia, particularly in remote and sparsely connected places in the Far East, WhatsApp is much more than chatting with friends and colleagues. Mobile browsing is sometimes painfully slow, so people use the app to coordinate local matters, order taxis, buy alcohol, and share news.

Both apps offer end-to-end encryption which means that no third party, not even those who own them, are able to read messages or listen to calls.

Officials say the apps refused to store Russian users' data in the country, as required by law, and they have claimed scammers exploit messaging apps. Yet Central Bank figures show most scams still happen over regular mobile networks.

Telecom experts and many Russians see the crackdown as the government trying to keep an eye on who people talk to and potentially what they say.

"The authorities don't want us, ordinary people, to maintain any kind of relationships, connections, friendships or mutual support. They want everyone to sit quietly in their own corner," says Marina who lives in Tula, a city 180km (110 miles) south of Moscow.

She asked us to change her name, worrying that speaking to foreign media can be dangerous.

A state-approved super-app

The new Max app is being aggressively promoted by pop stars and bloggers, and since 1 September all devices sold in Russia must have Max pre-installed.

It was launched by VK, which owns the country's largest social network of the same name. The Facebook-like platform is controlled by oil-and-gas giant Gazprom and one of Vladimir Putin's closest confidantes, billionaire Yuri Kovalchuk.

Max is set to become a super-app, bringing together multiple functions, including government digital services and banking.

The model mirrors China's WeChat - central to daily life but also a tool of censorship and surveillance.

Max's privacy policy states it can pass information to third parties and government bodies, potentially giving access to the security services or making user data vulnerable to leaks.

In Russia, where people are prosecuted for critical comments or private messages, and a black market of personal data feeds an epidemic of scam calls, this is a real concern.

Although many Russians are worried about the new restrictions on WhatsApp and Telegram, and by the introduction of Max, the state already has vast means to spy on its citizens.

By law, you can only buy a sim card with your national ID, and the security services have access to telecom operators' infrastructure. This means they can find out who you call as well as your whereabouts.

From this month it is now illegal to share your sim card with anyone other than a close relative.

But Max can potentially allow the authorities to read your messages as well - and avoiding the app is getting harder.

Schools are now obliged to move parent chats to the app.

In Rostov region, which borders Ukraine, Max is being adopted as an alert system; in St Petersburg, it is being tied to emergency services.

Despite the push, Max remains far behind its rivals - this week it claimed to have 30 million users.

The Kremlin has long been uneasy of the freedoms offered to people by the internet, which Vladimir Putin once called a CIA project.

The first legislative restrictions came in 2012, soon after mass opposition protests, officially to protect children from suicide-related content.

Ten years later, when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the government blocked popular social media sites, such as Facebook, Instagram and X, and most independent media, leaving them accessible only through VPNs.

New restrictions keep coming: as of this month, Russians face fines for "deliberately searching" online for extremist materials - more than 5,000 resources from an ever-growing blacklist compiled by the ministry of justice. Examples include a book by opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died in prison in 2024, and Ukrainian songs.

Another ban targets adverts on platforms linked to "extremist" organisations, in effect ending advertising on Instagram which many small businesses had relied on as a shopfront.

Ads for VPNs are also banned, and while using these apps is not illegal, it may now be treated as an aggravating factor in criminal cases.

State-induced digital detox

Apart from their problems with WhatsApp and Telegram, many Russians are now getting used to life without mobile internet altogether, as entire cities face regular cut-offs.

Since May, every Russian region has seen mobile internet go down.

Blackouts surged through the summer, with up to 77 regions hit by shutdowns simultaneously at the peak, according to the Na Svyazi (In Touch) project.

The authorities justify the measures by the need to protect people and infrastructure from attacks by Ukrainian drones - Kyiv's response to Russia's relentless and deadly bombardments of Ukrainian cities.

But some experts doubt that switching off mobile internet - which many Russians use instead of broadband - is an effective tool against long-distance drone attacks.

Local authorities, who were made responsible for countering drone attacks, have no other means to do it, explains telecom expert Mikhail Klimarev.

"There are no air defence systems, no army - everything's on the frontline," he says. "Their logic goes: we've switched off the internet and there were no drones, hence it works."

In Vladimir, 200km (125 miles) east of Moscow, two of the city's three districts have been offline for almost a month.

"It's impossible to check bus routes or timetables," says Konstantin, a resident who also asked to change his name. "The information boards at stops also show errors."

Taxi fares have risen as drivers cannot accept orders online.

State TV in Vladimir spun the shutdown as "digital detox", showing residents who said they now enjoyed more walking, reading and spending time with friends.

In Krasnoyarsk, a city of more than a million people in Siberia, mobile internet vanished citywide for three days in July and still works poorly.

Some officials rejected complaints, with one Krasnoyarsk bureaucrat suggesting remote workers who lost income should "go and work for the special military operation", as the war in Ukraine is known in Russia. She later apologised.

The government is now working on a scheme that will allow Russians to access only vital online services during shutdowns, such as banking, taxis, deliveries - and the Max messenger.

This is a dangerous step, warns Sarkis Darbinyan, lawyer and co-founder of digital rights group RKS Global.

"There's a possibility the authorities will use this measure for other goals apart from fighting drones," he tells the BBC.

He believes the Kremlin's current approach to the internet mirrors Beijing's.

"Unlike the Chinese, Russians have spent decades enjoying cheap, fast internet and foreign platforms," he says. "These services became deeply ingrained not only in people's daily lives but also in business processes."

For now those who are wary of installing Max on their devices can still find a way around it.

Marina from Tula says her mother, a school teacher, was instructed to download the messenger but claimed to her superiors that she didn't have a smartphone.

People can still call each other using regular mobile networks, although that is more expensive, especially when talking to someone abroad - and not secure.

There are other means available too, like using VPNs or alternative messaging apps, previously reserved for tech nerds and those handling sensitive information.

But as government control over the internet increases, fewer and fewer people will find ways to escape it - and that is assuming the internet is still available for them to try.