Durov Blamed Russian Officials For Fleeing I.T. Workers And A Broken Internet
- 5.06.2026, 19:09
Photo: DR
The Telegram founder criticized the Russian authorities for their policy of restrictions on the Internet.
Telegram founder Pavel Durov criticized the Russian authorities for the policy of restrictions on the Internet. He said that blocking communications and foreign services had not brought the country closer to "digital sovereignty" but had led to the departure of IT specialists. "Specialists who could create an operating system for smartphones in Russia are leaving the country en masse amid a broken internet. And without such a system, all smartphone apps - 'national' or 'foreign' - remain vulnerable to pinpoint surveillance and censorship by the US through backdoors and iOS and Android app stores," Durov wrote.
In his opinion, replacing foreign services with Russian analogs also does not solve the problem of technological dependence while maintaining US operating systems. "Replacing 'foreign' applications with 'national' ones while preserving American operating systems is a change of packaging without changing the essence. Potemkin villages with a flavor of corruption," he said.
Russian authorities are fighting VPN traffic, popular messengers and social networks, which has hit software developers. Programmers have begun to experience difficulties with access to open source services, management systems, libraries, and development environments, Kommersant wrote, citing IT companies. "We are talking about the entire infrastructure that provides a modern development cycle and is closely integrated with global services," Alexander Demin, head of the administration and DevOps department at Softline Group, noted. According to Alexei Mironov, a leading specialist of the IT company Stakhanovets, the difficulties appeared in February-March 2026. At that time, Roskomnadzor began to actively restrict the work of Telegram messenger, VPN and introduce whitelists of sites. Users across the country reported disruptions in mobile Internet and digital services, from carsharing services to bank websites and government platforms. The Kommersant newspaper estimated business losses from communication outages at about 1 billion rubles per day.
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