Russia has reacted angrily to the arrest by French authorities of Telegram founder Pavel Durov.
Russian soldiers and spies depend on Telegram for battlefield communications – guidance of artillery, coordination of movements, and intelligence gathering, according to the Wall Street Journal.
When they invaded, Russian units struggled to communicate and unencrypted radio traffic was easily intercepted.
Modern communications capabilities remain scarce; Soviet technologies don’t suit drone warfare.
The instant transfer of images and videos became critical so the Russians chose Telegram. It is based in the United Arab Emirates and believed to be more impervious to Western signals intelligence.
A Russian soldier said: “If our enemies get inside Telegram, our affairs will be crap. A lot of information is flowing through chats, encrypted and not.”
Analysts say that most messages on the network aren’t end-to-end encrypted.
Durov left Russia in 2014, relinquishing his stake in VKontakte, a social-media platform he had created, to avoid having to comply with the Russian intelligence services’ demand to supply the details of Ukrainian users in groups affiliated with the Maidan Revolution against Moscow-backed President Viktor Yanukovych.
The director of Russia’s SVR external intelligence service, Sergey Naryshkin, said that he expects Durov not to share with any information that would harm the Russian state.
Telegram is also vital for Russian intelligence operations in Europe.
By raising its concerns so publicly, Russia is warning Durov not to cooperate with anyone.
Andrei Soldatov of the Center for European Policy Analysis said that Durov sacrificed much to avoid disclosing data concerning the Maidan activists in 2013-4.
“What we don’t know is what are the conditions of his agreement with Russian officials in 2020, under which the ban on Telegram was lifted.”
[Photo: by Rubaitul Azad on Unsplash]