The American messaging app WhatsApp, owned by Meta Platforms, has been completely blocked in Russia for failing to comply with local law, the Kremlin said on Thursday, suggesting that Russians turn to a state-backed "national messenger."
"Due to Meta's unwillingness to abide by Russian law, such a decision was made and implemented," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, proposing that Russians switch to MAX, Russia's state broadcaster.
"MAX is an accessible alternative, a developing messenger, a national messenger, and it is available on the market for citizens as an alternative," Peskov said.
Critics say MAX is a surveillance tool. Russian authorities deny this.
The move against WhatsApp, the most popular messaging app in Russia, is the culmination of six months of pressure on the American company.
This reflects a broader push by Russian authorities in a time of war to create and control a “sovereign” communications infrastructure in which foreign-owned technology companies are subject to local laws or disappear.
Meta had already been designated as an extremist organization within Russia, and WhatsApp complained about what it called an attempt to completely block its service.
"The attempt to isolate over 100 million users from private and secure communication is a step backwards and can only lead to less safety for people in Russia," she said in a statement.
Several domain names associated with WhatsApp disappeared from Russia's national domain name registry, meaning that devices inside Russia stopped receiving its IP addresses from the app and could only be accessed using a virtual private network (VPN).
