After more than four years of war in Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin might be discovering that adherence to truth and open communications can be essential to ensuring a motivated military. A Kremlin attempt to steadily shut down Russia’s most popular and effective messaging platform, Telegram, has stirred dissent among civilian volunteers who assist the war online.
They are the patriotic digital influencers who arrange money and supplies – the resources the military does not reliably provide – for soldiers on the front lines. Without free access to an independent app like Telegram, which has already been slowly throttled for months, this civil society of auxiliary supporters could turn on the government. Morale in the army ranks might fall fast.
Spotty access to Telegram has also begun to reduce the ability of soldiers to message their families.
“All military work goes through Telegram – all communication,” a Russian soldier told Politico. “That would be like shooting the entire Russian army in the head.” A government-backed new app, called Max, is widely seen as inadequate in its capabilities as well as an attempt to control all digital communications and cut off Russia from the outside world.
For many Russians, an open internet is essential to survive Ukrainian missile attacks. One governor of a region near Ukraine told The New York Times that Telegram is needed for air-raid alerts. Disruptions to the messaging service have led to “needless deaths,” he said. In March, one well-known blogger, Ilya Remeslor, who had been loyal to Mr. Putin, turned on the Kremlin for its “strangling of internet and media freedoms.” He has since been put in a psychiatric ward.
Frequent internet blackouts and the loss of access to foreign apps such as YouTube have already disrupted daily life. Memes have made fun of Russians using paper maps, pagers, and walkie-talkies. Last week, protests in defense of Telegram were planned in more than two dozen cities and towns but were prevented by local officials. And as more people rush to use censor-skirting VPNs (virtual private networks), officials are clamping down on those, too. A survey released last month found 83% of teenagers have reacted negatively to the internet restrictions. Nearly half of the teens said they were angry, and 15% said they were crying.
The Russian inventor of Telegram, tech billionaire Pavel Durov, who now lives in self-exile in the United Arab Emirates, said the Kremlin’s moves on free speech are “a sad spectacle of a state afraid of its own people.” Yet his fellow-citizens’ response to the expected end of Telegram could end up being a force for freedom. And the same ideal of liberty, it turns out, is just what the people of Ukraine are defending.
