Kremlin: Telegram Messenger has no immunity against Russian laws
The Telegram Messenger will not have "immunity from Russian laws," as relayed to RIA Novosti by Igor Shchyogolev, an Assistant to the Russian President.
"The general principle is that when there are laws, they must be implemented," stressed the President’s Assistant in response to a question as to whether Telegram's work in Russia would be stopped. For more detailed information Shchyogolev advised reporters to contact the regulatory authorities.
In June, the head of Roskomnadzor (Russia’s Federal Service for Supervision of Communication, Information Technology and Mass Media), Alexander Zharov, threatened the founder of the messenger service, Pavel Durov, and the administrators of the messenger with the blocking of Telegram’s service in Russia after Telegram refused to provide Roskomnadzor with data for its "registry of information disseminators."
In response, Durov called the regulator's threats paradoxical. According to him, the blocking of Telegram "looks like a sabotage of state interests." At the end of June, Durov agreed to provide data to Roskomnadzor.
In July, President Vladimir Putin signed a law banning anonymizers, VPN technologies, and services in Russia. In October, Roskomnadzor created a department to fight anonymizers and Telegram Messenger.
In October, Moscow’s Meshchansky District Court found the messenger’s developer, Telegram Messenger LLP, guilty of not providing the Federal Security Service (FSB) with data for decoding user messages. The court has also decided to fine the company 800,000 rubles ($13,917 USD). Earlier, Durov said that the FSB's requirements for the messenger service violated the constitutional rights of Russians to the privacy of correspondence.
In mid-October, the Minister of Communications and Mass Media, Nikolay Nikiforov, stated that the situation regarding Telegram in Russia "is highlighted with a marker." He called attention to "major foreign players, such as WhatsApp, Viber, Facebook, and Google The Press Secretary for the Russian President, Dmitry Peskov, noted that the blocking of the messenger service "on the agenda" at the moment.