Durov's Knot: Wartime Telegram and its beneficiaries
The unexpected detention of Pavel Durov in Paris became one of the most high-profile events of August, sparking a storm of discussions in leading global media, as well as in Russian-language media and the blogosphere. Durov is the creator of Russia's second-largest social network, VKontakte, which was taken from him by the Kremlin 10 years ago, and Telegram, the third-largest, which has now grown into a global platform with nearly a billion users worldwide.
Telegram is used by the military to coordinate their actions on the battlefield, oppositionists use it to plan protests, subjects of authoritarian regimes to receive information that bypasses censorship, while those very regimes use it for propaganda,child porn enthusiasts get what they need, officials leak compromising material on each other, security forces stage provocations and recruit agents, crypto scammers and fraudsters carry out transactions. In addition, Telegram is very convenient as a messenger and for creating communities of different scales.
The Telegram case brings together different understandings of freedom, unfreedom, law and ethics, characteristic of developed countries of the West and developing countries of the East, autocracies and democracies. The main features of Telegram — anonymity, non-censorship and non-transparency — are in demand by everyone, including those who in reality oppose each other. But they are in demand in different situations and for different purposes. This explains both the incredible growth in the popularity of the platform and the geography of this popularity, and the fact that Durov, who has fled the authoritarian Russian authorities, is ready to be protected by these same authorities at a time when the gendarmerie of democratic France is threatening to arrest him.
Understanding Durov’s case is not about condemning or defending him but rather about trying to untangle the knot of white, black and grey threads that make up this mess – a knot that reflects the contradictory realities of today's world.
Telegram's role in the context of the Russia-Ukraine war is unique. The platform's anarchic nature – its resistance to censorship and its opacity – has made it appealing, and in some cases, indispensable for a society seeking more reliable information about the course of the war, both in Russia and Ukraine. Additionally, both Russian and Ukrainian authorities and intelligence services use the platform for their own purposes. Military forces also use Telegram to coordinate their actions.
The repression of independent media and social network users, the blocking of Western platforms, and the sharply increase in demand for information about the war have reshaped Russia’s public and media landscape. The winners in this new landscape include not only tightly controlled platforms like VK but also the loosely regulated Telegram.
At the same time, the platform’s role as a space of resistance and anti-war sentiment has been undermined by the phenomenon of 'war correspondents' (or voenkory), which revealed a new public demand – not for criticism of the state or the war, but for 'trench truth' and criticism of the authorities that does not extend to criticism of the regime itself. As a result, the network of ‘war correspondents’ turned into a channel of alternative propaganda that fulfils an important political function for the Kremlin.
In Ukraine, Telegram has become a crucial counterweight to the authorities‘ attempts to restrict citizens’ access to information about the conflict, as well as a tool for civilian coordination. It has thus become firmly embedded in public and political life. In addition, Telegram’s inherent features have made it attractive to intelligence agencies on both sides of the front, while the shortcomings of other communication tools have turned it into a key instrument for military coordination on the battlefield.
This unique versatility of the platform is based on the fact that the ‘grey zone’ created by Durov has proven convenient or necessary for various groups and constituencies, provided they can adapt it for their own purposes. Moreover, depending on the type of political regime and the specifics of the regulatory environment, these ‘shades of grey’ significantly change their importance and social function.
Military information demand
In the first half of 2024, Telegram became the third most popular social platform in Russia, with an audience of 85.3 million users, trailing only YouTube (96.1 million) and VKontakte (90.1 million), according to a Mediascope report. The platform's growth was largely driven by the war and the blocking of Meta's social networks. According to Mediascope, Telegram's daily reach increased from 20% of the Russian population in January 2022 to 47% in December 2023. The blocking of Instagram and Facebook coincided with a 10 percentage point increase in Telegram’s audience, from 23% to 33%.
The majority of Telegram's audience is concentrated in Moscow (31%), St Petersburg (12%), and the Moscow region (4%), accounting for nearly half of the user base. Around 50 million Russians use Telegram daily. One in four Russian-speaking users is subscribed to more than 50 Telegram channels, with over 60% of the most popular Russian-language channels falling under the ‘news’ category. News and political channels dominate across all age groups, except the youngest (12-24 years old), where entertainment channels slightly surpass them.
Analysis by Re: Russia, based on tgstat.ru data, reveals that the surge in Russian Telegram’s popularity over the last two years is directly linked to the war. Six of the top ten most popular Russian Telegram channels in the 'News and Media' category saw explosive growth in their audiences during the first months of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The leading news aggregator Topor Live grew its audience from 142,000 to 3.3 million subscribers between 13 January and 10 March 2022. The second-ranked channel ‘Live Efir. News’, created on 25 February 2022, gained almost 720,000 subscribers in two months. The channel of the state news agency ‘RIA Novosti’ (ranked third) increased its subscriber base from 362,000 to 2 million between 20 February and 20 May, 2022. Similarly, ‘Mash’ (5th place) grew from 1 million to 1.5 million, ‘Readovka’ (7th place) from 295,000 to nearly 1.1 million, and ‘Pravdivosti’ (10th place) from zero to 620,000. Collectively, the audience of these channels increased fivefold—from 1.8 million to 9.2 million (an exception to this trend were regional news channels like ‘Russia is Not Moscow’, ‘Moscow Live’, ‘Moskvach’, and ‘Moscow News’, which remained focused on local issues).
However, a significant portion of this new audience may be artificial. Data from Yandex Wordstat shows that the popularity of the query ‘buy Telegram subscribers’ tripled from February to March 2022 and increased more than fourfold by August 2024. In other words, the rapid growth of the military ‘network’ on Telegram was accompanied by a boom in demand for artificial subscribers. Confirming follower inflation requires analysing the closed statistics of tgstat.ru, available only to channel owners. However, an indirect analysis, using indicators identified by the marketing automation service Unisender, reveals suspicious data, such as that found in the leading channel, ‘Topor Live’.
At the same time, the influence of the war on the organic growth of information channels is undeniable, particularly for channels covering the war directly. The channel ‘Two Majors’, which emerged in the summer of 2022, has now reached an audience of more than 1.15 million, with the most dramatic growth in the number of its subscribers taking place from August to October 2022 (from 12,000 to 123,000 – a tenfold increase), which coincided with the Ukrainian armed forces’ counteroffensive near Kharkiv and the announcement of mobilisation. Another notable surge occurred in August 2024 (from 730,000 to 1.16 million – an increase of 1.5 times) during the Ukrainian military operation in the Kursk region.
Mecca of alternative propaganda
By the late 2010s, Telegram largely appeared to be a platform of resistance against authoritarianism in Russia. Public opinion surveys showed that those who cited Telegram as their primary source of information stood out for their more liberal and opposition-oriented views. However, after the start of the war and the platform’s rapid audience growth, this effect began to gradually fade (→ Re:Russia: The Kremlin is harnessing the cart). Although Telegram remains the most accessible way for Russians to access uncensored relocated and foreign media, the platform’s image and role in the Russian media landscape have changed with the emergence of the ‘war correspondents’ (voenkory) phenomenon.
The ‘voenkory’ phenomenon is a mixture of personal initiative, patronage from Yevgeny Prigozhin and his organisations, as well as support from the authorities, particularly the Ministry of Defence and the Presidential Administration (see Meduza’s brief overview of the Z-Telegram network as of October 2023). These voenkory promote a pro-war narrative that differs significantly from mainstream Russian propaganda, which is primarily television-based, and is often critical of it. The voenkory have criticised the government for its inability to win the war, attributing this failure to the incompetence of officials and military leaders, corruption within state structures, and the reluctance to mobilise more resources for the war effort. The audience growth of Z-channels also began in the early months of the war, coinciding with a surge in demand for fake followers. From February 20 to April 20, 2022, WarGonzo’s audience grew from 191,000 to 998,000, Sladkov+ from 35,000 to 633,000, Poddubny from 39,000 to 450,000, Kotsnews from 83,000 to 401,000, and Voenkor Kotenok from 20,000 to 203,000 – an average increase of fivefold.
Although the voenkory occasionally face pressure from the Kremlin and the Ministry of Defence, they generally do not compete with official propaganda but rather complement it. They cater to audiences that are dissatisfied with the style of official media. This is an alternative form of military propaganda that serves important political functions. The voenkory not only exploit the Z-style authenticity and demand for 'trench truth', but they also provide a source of information for those unsatisfied with the polished image presented by official television. They collaborate with the military, the Ministry of Defence, and state structures, receiving exclusive and often reliable information unavailable to either Western or uncensored Russian media.
Significantly, spikes in interest in pro-war channels coincide with crisis moments for the Russian authorities during the war – the Russian retreat and the announcement of mobilisation in August-September 2022, Prigozhin’s rebellion in June 2023, and the Ukrainian incursion into the Kursk region in August 2024. For example, a sharp rise in audience numbers was observed across all the voenkory channels in early August 2024, during the Ukrainian operation in the Kursk region: from 6 to 13 August, WarGonzo’s subscriber count increased by about 32,000, Sladkov+ by 30,000, Poddubny by 75,000, Kotsnews by 62,000, and Voenkor Kotenok by 27,000, though their audiences had stagnated or even declined over the previous year. The previous most significant surge in new subscribers was observed in the autumn of 2022, coinciding with the Ukrainian counteroffensive in the Kharkiv region.
This highlights an important political function of the voenkory: they absorb a significant part of the audience that loses trust in the official media in times of crisis. Instead of turning to alternative foreign or uncensored sources, this audience gravitates towards pro-war Z-opposition on Telegram, remaining within the fundamentally pro-war narrative. This helps maintain the impression of a 'pro-war majority' in Russia.
Ukraine: Telegram network vs. telethon
Paradoxically, Telegram is also a crucial source of news on the opposite side of the front – for the people of Ukraine. In December 2021, 20% of Ukrainians used the messenger to get news, but by June 2022, that figure had tripled to 65.7%, and by 2024, it had grown nearly fourfold from 2021 levels, reaching 78%, according to research by Opora. Currently, almost three-quarters of Ukrainians primarily get their news from social media, while only 43% rely on television (down from 67% in 2023). The top three most popular social networks in Ukraine are Telegram, YouTube (60%), and Facebook (45%).
Telegram holds the top spot in Ukraine for both men (72%) and women (83%). Over the past year, Telegram increased its male audience share by 6% and its female audience share by 7%, while other social networks saw declines: Facebook’s male and female audiences dropped by 8% and 13%, respectively, and YouTube’s by 10% and 4%. Telegram is used to get news across almost all age groups, with about 90% of young people (aged 18–39) relying on it. Regionally, Telegram is slightly more popular among residents of southern (84%) and central (80%) Ukraine than among those in the east and west (73–74%).
The growth of Ukraine's Telegram news channels has been driven by increasing censorship restrictions under the state-run ‘information telethon’ ‘Edinii novini’, launched immediately after the start of the full-scale invasion. The most popular Ukrainian Telegram news channel, Trukha Ukraina, which specialises in war coverage and has more than 2.6 million subscribers. In the six months following the start of the war, its audience grew from 190,000 to over 2.5 million. A similar trend has been seen with other channels in Ukraine’s top ten most popular Telegram news channels. However, unlike the Russian segment, the most recent spike in audience growth occurred not at the beginning of the war but in late August, coinciding with a noticeable deterioration in the situation on the front near Pokrovsk. This growth was not only seen in ‘Trukha Ukraina’ (with a 15,000-subscriber increase from 25 to 30 August), but also in channels like ‘Mykolaivsky Vanyok’ (32,000), ‘Realna Viyna’ (31,000), ‘Realnii Kyiv’ (21,000), and ‘Trident’ (125,000). As in the Russian case, this pattern reflects a ‘crisis-driven’ demand for information when trust in official sources sharply declines.
The rising popularity of Telegram in Ukraine has raised concerns among authorities. On 15 March, the Verkhovna Rada registered a bill imposing special requirements for Telegram's operations in Ukraine. If passed, the messenger would need to establish a local office, restrict certain types of advertising, respond to government requests, issue corrections for false information, and disclose its ownership structure and sources of funding upon request by the National Council on Television and Radio Broadcasting. The National Security and Defence Council of Ukraine has also proposed registering Telegram channels as media outlets to de-anonymize them. However, these ideas have yet to be implemented, likely due to their unpopularity with the public, as noted by the Atlantic Council.
The concerns of the Ukrainian authorities are understandable. Telegram's unique features could make it a weapon in the hands of any party to the conflict. However, these same features prevent the government from monopolising information, turning the platform into a tool for societal oversight and pressure on the state.
A ‘grey zone’ messenger
Telegram's special status in Russia was highlighted by Moscow's intense reaction to the detention of Pavel Durov. Propagandist Margarita Simonyan said that everyone ‘who is used to using Telegram for sensitive conversations/chats should delete these chats right now and stop doing so’ claiming that ‘Durov has been arrested to hand over the keys, and he will give them up’. Meanwhile, according to the Telegram channel ‘Baza’, which is close to Russian security agencies, after Durov's arrest, Russian officials were instructed to delete all work-related chats from the platform. Deputy Speaker of the State Duma, Vladislav Davankov, urged all efforts to be made to move Durov to the UAE or Russia, asserting that his detention could ‘be a tool to gain access to Telegram users' personal information, and that cannot be allowed’.
Beyond being a secure communication channel for Russian bureaucracy, Telegram has also become a coordination tool for Russian military operations. The author of the Z-channel ‘PNV: Out of Format’ believes that Durov’s arrest in France was effectively akin to detaining the 'head of communications for the Russian Armed Forces.' The inefficiency and excessive centralization of official communication systems on the front lines have prevented the Russian army from creating effective command structures to support offensives in northern Kharkiv and defensive operations in the Kursk region, according to experts from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW). In this context, military personnel increasingly relied on Telegram as an operational communication tool, with the Z-channel ‘Rybar’ describing it as ‘practically the primary command tool for units in the special military operation zone’. Any uncertainty about Telegram's future or disruptions to its service could significantly affect the effectiveness of Russian military operations, the ISW analysts emphasise.
Telegram's potential has also been fully recognized by intelligence agencies, which have turned it into a tool for recruiting agents and organising sabotage or provocations abroad, adds Nazar Tokar, head of the investigative project Kremlingram. After several failures of Russian military intelligence in Europe, the investigative project Dossier reported that the GRU (Russian military intelligence) began relying less on its own operatives for foreign operations, increasingly recruiting saboteurs on the ground through Telegram. Ukrainian intelligence also uses the platform for recruitment and communication ‘across the front lines’.
The widespread reliance on Telegram by Russian bureaucracy, military, and intelligence services frequently revives discussions about possible covert cooperation between Durov and Russian authorities. After Roskomnadzor stopped attempting to block Telegram in Russia in 2020, Oleg Matveychev, Deputy Chair of the State Duma's Committee on Information Policy, claimed that ‘Durov found a compromise with the FSB’. From 2015 to 2017 and again from 2020 to 2021, Durov visited Russia over 50 times, as determined by the outlet Important Stories, which analysed leaked data from the FSB's border service database. The most significant trips appear to be from 2020 to 2021, after a two-year hiatus, coinciding with Durov's resolution of issues with investors in Telegram's failed cryptocurrency project. According to the investigative project Texty, investors included Roman Abramovich, David Yakobashvili, Mikhail Fridman, and even VTB Capital. It was during this period – on 19 June 2020 – that Roskomnadzor suddenly announced it was lifting the ban on Telegram in Russia.
The fact that Durov has had contact with Russian authorities – whether direct or indirect – is almost certain, but it proves little. After all, during interrogation in France, according to the newspaper Liberation, Durov admitted to cooperating for several years with the French General Directorate for Internal Security (DGSI) in counterterrorism efforts, allegedly helping to prevent several attacks. It is likely that Russian authorities also pushed for such cooperation. The scale and mechanics of these contacts may become clearer in future investigations.
More importantly, the ‘grey zone’ created by Durov is extremely multifunctional and equally attractive to those who seek uncensored information under restrictive conditions, to civil and political activists, intelligence services, fraudsters, distributors of deepfakes and alternative propaganda. The question is not how they interact with Durov, but how successfully they adapt Telegram's features for their own purposes. Depending on the political regime and regulatory environment, these 'shades of grey' can significantly alter their importance and social function.
Read the first part of this review, ‘Durov's Knot: Telegram beyond East and West’, here.