Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a new law authorizing the creation of a government-supported messaging application that will be integrated with official state services. This initiative is part of Russia’s broader goal of achieving “digital sovereignty” by reducing its reliance on foreign communication platforms such as WhatsApp and Telegram.
The drive to replace Western technologies intensified after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, which led to the withdrawal of several Western companies from the Russian market.
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According to Russian lawmakers, the upcoming state messaging app will include features that go beyond what WhatsApp and Telegram currently offer. However, privacy advocates have raised concerns, warning that state control over such a platform could threaten personal freedoms and user privacy.
Mikhail Klimarev, head of the Internet Protection Society—an organization focused on digital rights in Russia—suggested earlier that the Russian government might deliberately slow down access to WhatsApp and Telegram to steer users toward the new state-controlled platform.
Meanwhile, in the United States, WhatsApp faced a setback of its own. The app has been officially banned from all devices used by the U.S. House of Representatives. In a memo issued to House staff, the Office of Cybersecurity cited concerns over the app’s lack of data protection transparency, its absence of stored data encryption, and other security risks.
Alternative messaging services recommended for official use include Microsoft Teams, Amazon’s Wickr, Signal, and Apple’s iMessage and FaceTime. Meta, the parent company of WhatsApp, strongly opposed the decision, claiming that WhatsApp offers better security features than the suggested alternatives.
In a related incident earlier this year, a WhatsApp official revealed that Israeli spyware firm Paragon Solutions had targeted several of the platform’s users, including journalists and civil society members, raising further alarms about privacy vulnerabilities.
