In conditions where the enemy does not disdain any methods for a genocidal war in Ukraine, the position of the Ukrainian authorities regarding one of the main tools of Russia, the Telegram messenger, looks strange and criminal.
After the eloquent arrest of the founder of Telegram and VKontakte, Pavel Durov, in Paris, the entire machine of Russian state propaganda came to his defense, calling him one of the extremely important elements for the war against Ukraine, namely the “chief of communications of the SWO”.
That is, the Rashists, in this way, quite transparently recognized the cooperation of Durov and his tools – Telegram and VKontakte – with the Russian regime. All the facts are now obvious.
And this, of course, poses a serious threat to the national security of Ukraine. Do not doubt that the Russian FSB knows for sure all the administrators of Ukrainian anonymous telegram channels, including military ones. Accordingly, it has their addresses and much more.
In these conditions, the Security Service of Ukraine demonstrates complete inaction, ignoring the existing and obvious threats to Telegram and not proposing sanctions against the messenger, which the Russians themselves recognize as “SWO communication.”
We would like to remind you that it was for security reasons that in 2017, using sanctions tools, our team was able to effectively shut down the VKontakte social network in Ukraine. No “catastrophe” happened, because Ukrainians have an alternative in the form of Western quality social networks.
However, some in the Bankova system are directly interested in the worst practices of the Russian Telegram, which, unlike its Western counterparts, allows complete anonymity and, in general, does not regulate fake news, slander outright lies, or incitement of enmity in any way. But he easily deletes channels, including opposition channels, at the request of the authorities. This is not and cannot be a normal practice, with which we fully agree with our French partners.
Many professionals in the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Security Service are in favor of de-anonymizing Telegram and regulating it on the same level as the mass media.
We demand that at the next session, the parliament at least consider our team’s draft law on the regulation of the Telegram messenger in terms of transparency of work and funding. Today, this step is minimal for the protection of national interests in the information sphere.