Three and a half years of war have turned Russia’s media landscape upside down. For decades, television was the unchallenged megaphone of the state, shaping public opinion with no real competition. That dominance is slipping. Polls show TV still leads, with 60 percent of Russians citing it as their main news source. But when you add up Telegram, other social media, and video platforms, their combined reach has already surpassed television.
The breakout star is Telegram. Before the invasion of Ukraine, only about 6 to 7 percent of Russians considered it their primary news source. By the end of 2022, that number had nearly tripled, and by 2025 it climbed to 26 percent. Trust in Telegram has jumped as well, from 7 percent in 2021 to 17 percent this year. Meanwhile, confidence in TV has slipped from 50 to 44 percent.
YouTube, on the other hand, has been gutted by blocks and slowdowns: its audience shrank by nearly half in a year, from 38 to 21 percent. The upshot is clear: Russian media consumption is becoming multi-polar. Even retirees, the backbone of the TV audience, now treat social platforms as a secondary news source.
The Internet as a Battlefield
A decade ago, social media in Russia looked like an opposition playground. Today, it’s a battleground of competing narratives. That very competition unnerves the Kremlin, which sees any alternative to monopoly control as a threat. Hence the push to “Sinicize” the Russian internet.
The plan rests on two pillars. First, a whitelist model: users should only see content that’s been screened and approved, essentially a digital version of TV programming. Second, sovereign platforms: Moscow isn’t satisfied with just monitoring Telegram or WhatsApp. It wants its own state-built messenger, MAX—a tool not just for chatting, but for surveillance and control.
Cutting the Tail in Pieces
The first move came with a ban on voice calls through WhatsApp and Telegram. On paper, it seemed minor—Russians still rely heavily on regular cell service for calls. But surveys show the public doesn’t like it, even if it doesn’t directly disrupt daily habits.
The government knows an outright ban on Telegram or WhatsApp would spark outrage. So it’s taking a piecemeal approach—cutting the tail in pieces. First calls disappear. Then come slow nudges pushing users toward MAX. For now, only 6 percent of Russians use it. But with bureaucratic muscle, propaganda, and “soft coercion,” officials expect that number to grow.
Society Between Protest and Resignation
Russian society today is split. Large swaths bristle at restrictions and voice their discontent. Others, softened by propaganda, eventually buy into the official line—accepting censorship as “security,” “anti-extremism,” or “digital sovereignty.”
The Kremlin is betting on fatigue and normalization. What sparks outrage today may look routine tomorrow. That’s exactly how television was tamed in the early 2000s. The same blueprint is now being applied to the internet.
Digital Isolation as Strategy
This isn’t just about apps or tech policy. It’s about creating a “digital enclave,” where the state vertically controls the flow of information and sidelines dissent.
For the Kremlin, the payoff is control: fewer risks of losing the narrative amid war, sanctions, and economic decline. But the price is steep—deepening Russia’s isolation from the global information space. Millions of Russians face a future where the borders of the internet align with the borders of censorship.
The Bigger Picture
The fight over messengers and social networks is more than a tech scuffle—it’s about the very future of Russia’s public sphere. The internet is the last arena where truth still collides with propaganda. The Kremlin wants a Chinese-style digital curtain. Russian society, caught between protest and resignation, hasn’t yet decided whether to push back or give in.
One thing is clear: habits have already shifted. Television will never again be the sole master of Russian minds.
TV Loses Its Monopoly
Survey data from 2021 to 2025 shows the turning point. In the chaotic first months of war, television’s share as the primary news source even ticked up—it played the role of mobilizer, churning out nonstop war coverage. But that bump didn’t last. By mid-2022, TV was already bleeding audience to social networks.
Fast forward to August 2025: television was cited as the main source by just 32 percent of respondents. Social platforms, taken together, captured 37 percent. And this wasn’t just the under-30 crowd. Even among older Russians—three-quarters of whom still rely on TV—social media is now firmly established as a secondary source. Meanwhile, younger generations barely register TV at all.
The lesson? Social networks have won the battle for habits. They offer customization, instant access, and alternatives. TV, stuck with rigid schedules and limited options, has lost its edge in a world where information is no longer one-size-fits-all.
Social Media as a Battlefield
Gone are the days when social networks were seen as the digital stomping ground of the opposition. In today’s Russia, they’ve morphed into a crowded battlefield of competing narratives. What’s striking is the symmetry: among those who approve of Putin, 26 percent cite Telegram as their primary news source; among those who disapprove, it’s 28 percent. That balance underscores a bigger shift—social platforms are no longer just a haven for critics, but a shared space where loyalists, dissenters, and every shade of commercial or ideological player collide.
For the Kremlin, that equilibrium is deeply unsettling. Television has long been locked down into a monopoly. Social media, by contrast, thrives on competition—and for an autocracy, competition is a weak spot. Which is why Moscow is leaning hard into what can only be called a “Digital Beijing” strategy.
Whitelists and Shutdowns
By the summer of 2025, the Kremlin was actively experimenting with “whitelists”—a curated set of sites that remain accessible even as the broader internet is throttled or blocked. It’s a move toward a permission-based web, where the state, not the user, decides which pages open and which vanish into the void.
In practice, that meant mass slowdowns and outages. According to the research project Na Svyazi, between June and August alone, Russia saw more than 4,000 local or partial shutdowns—699 in June, 2,099 in July, and 2,119 in August. A Levada Center poll found that 71 percent of respondents had trouble accessing the internet on their phones, and more than half admitted those disruptions seriously complicated daily life.
The new reality is clear: the internet is no longer a guaranteed utility. It’s an experimental playground for censorship.
MAX vs. the “Foreigners”
The second front in the Kremlin’s digital campaign has been a full-on assault on messengers. On June 1, 2025, Law No. 41-FZ came into force, restricting the transfer of Russian users’ personal data to “foreign” apps like WhatsApp and Telegram. Banks, telecom operators, and state-owned companies were banned from sharing data with them. A month later, lawmakers doubled down with amendments to the Personal Data Law, further weakening the position of foreign messengers and nudging users toward Moscow’s pet project: the national messenger MAX.
MAX isn’t just an app. It’s part of a pressure campaign. It comes pre-installed on new phones and tablets, is advertised aggressively, and public employees have been quietly instructed to use it as their main channel. The big hammer came in mid-August, when voice and video calls were blocked in WhatsApp and Telegram.
How Users Are Responding
Polls suggest the Kremlin may be playing with fire. By March 2025, 43 percent of Russians said they used Telegram regularly—almost as many as on VKontakte (50 percent). But as a messenger, Telegram pulls way ahead: 62 percent rely on it for calls and messages, compared with just 25 percent for VK.
WhatsApp remains the overall leader, with 70 percent of users. Among older Russians, penetration hovers around 60 percent, rising to 80 percent in middle age. For younger generations, though, Telegram dominates, with reach close to 90 percent. Which means the August call bans hit hardest among the most active, youngest, and least loyal demographic.
Cutting the Tail in Pieces
Moscow knows that banning Telegram or WhatsApp outright would trigger a political firestorm. So the Kremlin is opting for gradualism—cutting the tail in pieces. First you cripple key functions, then you steer people toward MAX. The hope is that user habits will bend under pressure. But so far, society is pushing back. Polls show majorities oppose the restrictions, even when their own daily routines aren’t directly affected.
Russia is standing on the edge of a “digital curtain.” Social platforms have already dethroned television as the country’s uncontested media king. And that is precisely why the state is willing to go to extremes to claw back total control. Whitelists, shutdowns, punitive data laws, and the forced rollout of MAX are all parts of the same project: to build a closed digital ecosystem where free speech survives only on the dusty margins of the web.
Digital Paranoia: Russians Confront Messenger Call Bans
An August survey by FOM confirms that digital communication has become a daily staple. WhatsApp is used by 57 percent of Russians, Telegram by 46 percent, and VKontakte by 41 percent. A solid 63 percent say they log into social platforms or messengers every day, while 62 percent use them to chat. But voice calls remain secondary: just 37 percent admit they talk that way.
A Russian Field poll adds nuance: only 15 percent of respondents said messenger calls were their default, while another 10 percent split evenly between apps and mobile service. For the vast majority—73 percent—cell networks remain the norm. In other words, despite the massive footprint of messengers, their primary value still lies in chats, not calls.
The First Fallout
After the August ban on voice calls in WhatsApp and Telegram, Levada found that 63 percent of users noticed problems with the apps, and half said it made life more difficult. Still, the numbers point less to total paralysis than to nagging disruptions.
FOM data shows that 15 percent of heavy messenger users called the ban a “serious loss,” 23 percent labeled it an “annoyance,” while 26 percent didn’t notice at all. The takeaway: despite some alarmist commentary, the hit to Russians’ “everyday lifestyle” has been more of an inconvenience than a catastrophe.
Three Polls, Three Interpretations
What’s striking about the August 2025 surveys isn’t just the numbers—it’s how differently they were framed.
Levada Center leaned into the Kremlin’s narrative, explicitly linking its question to the fight against “fraudsters and terrorists.” Not surprisingly, that wording tipped the scales: 49 percent supported the ban, 41 percent opposed it.
Russian Field took a different tack. Their framing emphasized monopoly and lack of alternatives, and the question referred to banning messengers in general—not just calls. The results flipped: 70 percent opposed, only 15 percent backed the move.
FOM tried to stay neutral but muddled the methodology. They asked only internet users (80 percent of their sample) but reported results as if they applied to the entire group of 1,500. On paper: 49 percent against, 15 percent for, 16 percent unsure. But recalculated properly, the numbers show a clearer picture—over 60 percent opposed, around 20 percent in favor, and another 20 percent undecided. Even in the far-fetched scenario where every single undecided suddenly backed the Kremlin, support would barely crack 35 percent.
Take all three together, and the reality looks like this: about 65 percent of Russians did not support the ban on messenger calls, roughly 30 percent did, and the rest were on the fence. What matters most is that opposition far outstrips the share of people who actually use messenger calls regularly.
The signal is unmistakable: digital services now carry symbolic weight. Even if app-based calling isn’t a daily habit, banning it is seen as a violation of personal space. For the Kremlin, that’s a red flag—digital control may spark far stronger resistance than the state anticipates.
Russia Between Control and Protest
August 2025 offered a telling snapshot of public sentiment. Despite months of scare-mongering about “terrorists,” “scammers,” “data leaks,” and “foreign surveillance,” support for online censorship dropped. Back in April 2022, Levada found 57 percent in favor of restrictions; by August 2025, that number was down to 52 percent. The gap may look small, but the trend is clear: even amid war, nonstop propaganda, and a climate of fear, Russians are growing less willing to accept digital repression as “normal.”
The numbers also undermine the official justification. According to FOM, 59 percent of Russians had run-ins with scammers via mobile phones, compared with just 14 percent through messengers or social media. A Central Bank study echoes that finding: 46 percent of fraud cases stemmed from phone calls and texts, while only 16 percent involved messengers. The real threat lies in phones, yet the Kremlin pins the danger on “foreign” apps.
What the Three Polls Tell Us
The divergent survey results point to three core insights.
- Calls aren’t the main habit. For most Russians, messengers mean chats, not phone calls. Restricting calls affected only a minority.
- The majority rejects restrictions. Even those not directly inconvenienced still opposed the move. That suggests resentment against digital restrictions is becoming broader than just the group of “affected users.”
- Framing is everything. When survey questions echo state rhetoric about terrorism, support rises (Levada). Neutral or alternative framings (Russian Field, FOM) reveal the opposite: widespread rejection. This shows just how malleable public opinion can be when the wording changes.
Cutting the Tail in Pieces
For now, MAX—the state’s homegrown messenger—has only 6 percent penetration, according to Levada. But that’s where the Kremlin is betting its chips. Instead of an outright ban on WhatsApp and Telegram, officials are rolling out restrictions in stages: cripple calls first, then lean on administrative pressure, preinstall MAX on new devices, bombard the airwaves with ads, and push state workers into line.
This “cutting the tail in pieces” strategy is built on the assumption that people will gradually adapt, grumble less, and accept MAX by default. What the Kremlin fears most isn’t technical disruption, but the kind of sudden, emotional backlash a total ban could unleash—a backlash that could even unite fragmented public opinion against it.
The paradox is stark. On one hand, banning calls didn’t paralyze communications—most Russians still rely on cell service. But on the other, the reaction went well beyond functional habits. Many saw it as an attack on the freedom of digital communication itself.
The lesson is sobering: Russia’s “digital curtain” won’t fall without friction. The Kremlin may bank on slow adaptation, but trust in the state’s digital policy is eroding faster than it can build new tools of control.