Executive Summary
Amid the Kremlin’s attempts to bring Russia’s digital space under full state control, the authorities have launched their largest project in recent years — the messenger Max, officially branded as “the national messenger of Russia.” Its rollout has been accompanied by the blocking of Western social networks, restrictions on Telegram and WhatsApp, and the expansion of a broad campaign combining administrative coercion and propaganda.
Unlike previous failed attempts to create domestic alternatives such as Tam-Tam or Sferum, this time the Kremlin mobilized the entire vertical of power. Max has been made mandatory for pre-installation on all smartphones, while schools, ministries, and state institutions received performance indicators tied to the “transition to the national messenger.” In several regions, teachers and officials have been effectively forced to use the application under the threat of dismissal.
Formally, Max is presented as a “Russian version of WeChat” — a universal platform for communication, banking, marketplaces, and government services. In practice, however, the use of the messenger and its integrated services means the complete collection of user information by Russian security agencies. Authorization takes place through the state portals Gosuslugi and RuStore, which automatically link private messages, payments, and in-app activity to the user’s passport data. Security services have direct access to this information through built-in monitoring mechanisms.
The project is formally overseen by Vladimir Kiriyenko, the son of First Deputy Chief of the Presidential Administration Sergey Kiriyenko, while political control remains firmly in his father’s hands. It is implemented by VK Group, which is controlled through Gazprom-Media structures. Max is not a private IT initiative but a Kremlin instrument embedded within the state’s surveillance infrastructure.
The promotion of Max is being orchestrated by the entire state propaganda apparatus. Channel One, Rossiya-24, and RT broadcast daily segments about the “national messenger,” presenting it as a symbol of digital patriotism. State news agencies TASS and RIA Novosti simultaneously publish identical press releases claiming that “Max protects Russians’ data from Western intelligence services.” The patriotic education program “Conversations About Important Things” in schools has already introduced new topics on “digital independence” and “domestic technologies.” The propaganda campaign also enlists popular bloggers and entertainers such as Egor Kreed, SHAMAN, Instasamka, Basta, Klava Koka, and others. Their task is to create the illusion of a voluntary and “trendy” migration to the Russian messenger Max. In reality, this is a form of administrative mobilization under the slogan:
“Be a patriot — use your own.”
Putin personally oversees the project, transforming it into an element of ideological warfare. Every law, meeting, and public appearance related to information policy is used to promote the Max messenger. At one such meeting, Putin stated that “foreign platforms are suffocating us, so we must suffocate them in return.” This remark became the official rationale for blocking foreign and independent messengers, expanding censorship, and eliminating competitors.
Despite the millions of “registered” users reported in official statistics, actual engagement remains low. Even state-funded research indicates that nearly half of Russians are unwilling to switch to Max, viewing it as unsafe. Independent surveys reveal widespread distrust and continued use of VPNs to maintain access to familiar foreign platforms.
Ultimately, Max has become less a tool of communication than a mechanism where propaganda and administrative coercion merge into a single system.
A messenger that was meant to symbolize “sovereignty” has, in practice, become a symbol of the Kremlin’s effort to bring Russia’s entire digital space under total control.
From policy to enforcement: the forced transition to the Max messenger
In 2025, the Kremlin launched its most ambitious initiative in recent years to establish a fully state-controlled communication platform. The Max messenger project, branded as “national” and “sovereign,” became a central pillar of the strategy to seal off Russia’s digital environment. The platform integrates personal and group chats, audio and video calls, public channels, mini-applications, and connectivity with banking services and the state portal Gosuslugi, creating a unified ecosystem under direct administrative oversight. According to the developers’ press releases, by November 2025 the application has 50 million registered users, with an average daily audience of 18 million and a peak load of 21 million on October 7 and 10. Over three billion messages have been sent through the service, more than seven hundred million calls made, and over eleven thousand channels created.
According to Putin’s directive, the Max messenger was elevated to the status of a national priority. Legally, the developer is “Kommunikatsionnaya Platforma,” a subsidiary of VK headed by 71-year-old Elena Bagudina. Since 2021, VK Group has been controlled by Gazprom-Media Holding through the state-owned Sogaz and Gazprombank structures. The de facto curator of the project is Sergey Kiriyenko, First Deputy Chief of the Presidential Administration. His son, Vladimir Kiriyenko, CEO of VK, acts as the project’s operational manager. Through VK and its affiliated structures, he supervises marketing campaigns, media promotion, and the development of integrations. In his public statements, Vladimir Kiriyenko describes Max as “the foundation of Russia’s digital sovereignty” and “the main instrument of trusted communication.”
Maksut Shadaev, Minister of Digital Development, became the project’s technical curator. It was Shadaev who presented Putin with the concept of the national messenger, comparing Max to its Asian counterparts — Japan’s Line, South Korea’s KakaoTalk, Vietnam’s Zalo, and China’s WeChat. At the same time, Shadaev emphasized that “the Russian version must unite everything — from communication to government services.”
The technical architecture of Max is built using the programming languages Java, TypeScript, Python, and Go, while WebRTC is employed for voice calls. Part of the code was borrowed from earlier VK projects such as Tam-Tam and Odnoklassniki. However, the system’s analytics and authentication rely on Google’s Firebase SDK, casting doubt on official claims of “complete digital sovereignty.”
A series of previous attempts to create Russian alternatives to global messengers — domestic versions of ICQ, Mail.Ru Agent, VK Messenger, Tam-Tam, and Sferum — ended in failure. The absence of competitive advantages and the prevailing distrust toward Russian applications were not, at that time, reinforced by compulsory migration policies. None of those platforms were able to compete with Telegram or WhatsApp. The relative “success” of Max can be attributed solely to state-enforced adoption amid the war against Ukraine, pervasive censorship, government bans on foreign platforms, and the aggressive promotion of the ideology of “digital patriotism.”
The economic aspect of the Max project has proven to be just as revealing. The initial development costs are estimated at 1–2 billion rubles (approximately 12–24 million USD), while VK’s projected advertising revenue from the platform in 2025 may amount to about 600 million rubles (around 6.5 million USD), according to the company’s owners — a claim that has raised questions among experts. As of mid-October, 11,000 channels have been registered on the Max messenger, where advertising is “expected” to be placed. However, all these channels are required to be registered with Roskomnadzor (Russian state agency) and were forced to create accounts on Max due to government regulations or directives from the authorities. This makes their advertising potential highly questionable, while the propagandistic purpose behind the creation of such channels is evident. Advertising placements in the messenger will likely become another implicit or even official obligation, just like registration itself — fully controlled by the authorities.
By comparison, Russia’s annual advertising market for Telegram exceeds 12 billion rubles (roughly 149 million USD), and for YouTube nearly 25 billion rubles (about 299 million USD). Max is not promoted as a commercial competitor, but as a political instrument whose financing depends not on market demand, but on the will of the state.
By October 2025, the project had expanded beyond communication and evolved into a full-fledged economic ecosystem. Max launched a marketplace for businesses, “allowing” companies to create mini-applications and chatbots. Among the first partners were Ozon, X5 Group, VTB, Alfa-Bank, Magnit, Vkusvill, and Tele2. In reality, starting from July 1, 2025, nearly all these companies were forced to register on Max under Federal Law No. 41-FZ, which prohibits many Russian state bodies, state-owned companies, financial institutions, telecom operators, and large online platforms from using foreign messengers such as Telegram and WhatsApp. Instead, they are required to switch to the national (Max) messenger. All business accounts are verified through state portal Gosuslugi and RuStore, enabling the state to control transactional data and corporate users.
Thus, Max has become not merely a communication and propaganda tool but a mechanism for the centralized accounting of economic activity.
The project is presented as Russia’s domestic “super app” uniting communications, payments, government services, and mini-applications. However, the Russian version is built solely on administrative coercion and embedded surveillance. SORM-3, the System for Operative Investigative Activities, is integrated into Max’s infrastructure, granting security agencies full access to messages and calls. Experts note that “the architecture of Max largely replicates WeChat but is adapted to fit a vertical system of governance.” In the Russian context, this means that the digital ecosystem is built from the top down: the messenger does not serve users but is effectively designed to control and manage them.
In schools, new modules have been added to the so-called patriotic “Conversations About Important Things” series, now emphasizing “national security” and “digital sovereignty.” The Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Digital Development have introduced a formal reporting system to track the rollout of Max across schools and government institutions, effectively turning the messenger into another instrument of state oversight. Teachers and civil servants have been given KPI targets, and according to a source in the Tyumen Region Department of Education, schools were instructed to ensure that at least 75 percent of staff actively use Max, at least 30 percent of parents must be registered, and 90 percent of students must use the application for educational purposes. In some regions, refusal to install Max has led to resignations “by personal request.” The same principles apply to civil servants. The mandatory pre-installation of Max on all devices, the ban on using foreign messengers for official communication, and the requirement for governors to report on regional “digitalization” have turned the project into a vertically managed system. Ilya Seredyuk, governor of the Kemerovo Region, announced the “complete migration of all communications” to Max, while the mayors of Krasnodar and Novosibirsk ordered their subordinates to move all work chats to the national messenger. In St. Petersburg, Max has been integrated into emergency services 112 and 122, where, according to official statements, it is used for “operational coordination.”
Narrative engineering: propaganda, control, and digital conformity
The symbolic level turns the use of Max into an act of political loyalty. National media construct a persistent narrative of “digital patriotism”: to be on Max means to be within one’s own country. Telegram and WhatsApp are portrayed as “tools of Western espionage,” while switching to Max is framed as a civic duty and proof of devotion to the homeland.
Vladimir Putin personally initiated the political propaganda campaign to promote the messenger, making digital sovereignty a central part of the rhetoric of “national independence.” On June 4, 2025, Putin instructed the government to ensure the “development of a domestic internet and the creation of a national messenger,” and by June 24 he had signed Federal Law No. 150-FZ, which established the legal foundation for Max. From that moment, the project moved from a stage of corporate development to the rank of a state priority. On September 7, an official presidential channel appeared within the application - a symbolic moment that turned Max into a major domestic political platform of the Kremlin. Official channels have also been created for ministers, governors, and the mayor of Moscow.
Around Max, a clear hierarchy of influence has gradually taken shape: at the top are Putin and the Presidential Administration, setting the political direction; below them, the technical apparatus of the government and VK, responsible for development and implementation; and in the public sphere - deputies, senators, bloggers, entertainers, and other public figures who provide ideological justification and create the illusion of mass popular support for the messenger. The entire campaign is built around several persistent narratives: digital sovereignty, digital patriotism, security, discrediting competitors, and the universality of the platform. The central idea is the protection of personal data from Western intelligence agencies and the transition to a domestic product as a marker of loyalty. Telegram and WhatsApp are portrayed as “instruments of espionage,” while Max is presented as a guarantor of security and technological independence. Putin set the tone for this discourse, declaring at one of his meetings:
“We should strangle them (Western messengers), I completely agree. Because they are strangling us - we must respond in kind.”
This phrase became the leitmotif of the entire campaign to push foreign platforms out of the Russian digital space. Propagandistic support for the Max project has been taken over by the State Duma Committee on Information Policy. Its members, Sergey Boyarsky, Anton Gorelkin, and Anton Nemkin, have become Max’s main public advocates. They promote the project in parliament and in the media, legitimizing it within the framework of the national agenda. Gorelkin, a former deputy head of the Russian state agency Roskomnadzor, stated directly that “WhatsApp should prepare to leave the Russian market,” while registration in Max through Gosuslugi “guarantees security and control.” Anton Nemkin dismissed claims that Max could be used for surveillance or denunciations, stating that “its purpose is convenient and secure communication, not control.”
Senator Artyom Sheikin insisted that “no one is being forced to use it; it is a user’s choice,” insisted, although in practice, the transition to Max is mandated by government decrees and KPI systems. Deputy and political technologist Oleg Matveychev advised colleagues to “abandon unsafe Western services and switch to the domestic messenger Max,” advised colleagues. Sergey Boyarsky, first deputy chairman of the committee, framed the argument more bluntly: “Foreign platforms encourage fraud and data theft.”
National TV channels — Channel One, Rossiya-24, and RT — broadcast daily segments portraying Max as a “patriotic alternative to Western services.” Radio stations such as Vesti FM, Russkoye Radio, and Europa Plus have joined the campaign. State media outlets including TASS, RIA Novosti, RBC, and Kommersant publish uniform articles extolling the advantages of the “domestic application.” Notably, many of these reports now include embedded links to installation guides for the Max messenger. The third wave of promotion took the form of a massive influencer campaign. The promotion of Max was entrusted to celebrities familiar to the younger audience - Instasamka, Valya Karnaval, Egor Kreed, Klava Koka, SHAMAN, Basta, Artemy Lebedev, Vlad Bumaga, and others. Their combined reach exceeds 100 million users. Advertising placements are handled by the country’s largest platforms - Avito, Yandex Advertising, Milestone, SALO, D-Agency, Telega.in, Mash, and others. As a result, the campaign has acquired a totalizing character: from schools and government officials to bloggers and musicians - everyone is engaged in a single, unified information circuit.
Pro-war bloggers turn against the Kremlin’s Max messenger
Unlike the national propaganda apparatus and its online affiliates, pro-war bloggers have so far taken an oppositional stance toward the Max messenger. For now, criticism of the messenger and the blocking of Western platforms by prominent Z-authors on Telegram remains tolerated by the authorities — but this tolerance is likely temporary. As with other politically sensitive issues, military correspondents who fail to align themselves with the official line may soon face repercussions, including being labeled as “foreign agents,” targeted by smear campaigns, or otherwise marginalized.
Overall, opposition to the authorities has become a consistent behavioral style among Z-bloggers, who have — whether intentionally, following the Kremlin’s tacit guidance, or instinctively — evolved into a kind of “new” opposition. They profess loyalty to Putin and strongly support the war, yet constantly criticize the government for nearly everything else.
The primary reason for the negative perception of Max within the pro-war community is that its introduction could lead to tighter restrictions on Telegram, which remains the key communication channel between soldiers, volunteers, and frontline commanders. For many participants in the war, Telegram is not merely a communication tool but a vital infrastructure ensuring the rapid transfer of information, coordination of actions, and operational security. As a result, any discussion of potential restrictions on the platform is perceived as a direct threat to the army’s combat effectiveness. In a joint post by two major Z-channels, Dva Mayora and Arkhangel Spetsnaza, the authors explicitly warn of such risks:
“Max has already appeared in fraudulent schemes. Do you really think it’s difficult for Ukrainian terrorists to obtain Russian SIM cards or move their activities to other messengers? What’s happening now is a crude and shortsighted decision — shutting down Telegram will primarily hurt us”.
This sentiment is echoed by other Z-authors who emphasize that Telegram has become the primary technological platform for frontline communication, unmatched by any Russian applications. As the author of Pozivnoy Osetin notes, “Civilians can live without Telegram, but in the Special Military Operation zone there will be serious problems, because Telegram is one of the first sources of coordination — it’s easier, faster, and safer. Time has proven this, and there’s no alternative now”
Discontent is also tied to the fact that Telegram has become the main media and monetization platform for pro-war authors. Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, their channels have grown exponentially, turning into instruments of propaganda, mobilization, and personal profit. Telegram provides them with economic stability: donations, advertising, and sponsorships are directly linked to audience activity. Any potential restriction or blocking of the platform threatens these income sources. Against this backdrop, Max has failed to become a meaningful alternative for the Z-segment. Even the largest pro-war figures — Yury Podolyaka and Vladimir Solovyov — have opened channels on Max, but their audiences are dramatically smaller than on Telegram: Podolyaka has around 388,000 subscribers (eight times fewer than on his Telegram channel), while Solovyov has about 238,000. Other Z-channels have not surpassed 100,000 followers. This reinforces skepticism that the project can realistically compete with Telegram. Some bloggers see the promotion of Max as artificial and interpret it as preparation for an administrative crackdown on Telegram. For example, the author of the Z-channel Zergulo, reposted by Z-blogger Roman Saponkov, sarcastically commented on Max’s reported user numbers:
“These periodic claims about 100–500 billion users on the Max messenger aren’t random. It’s justification for a future Telegram ban — something like ‘All of Russia is already on Max, so we can block TG.’ ... I still hope there are people ‘at the top’ who will stop this madness and blatant profiteering. It’s all very sad — there’s nothing more to say.”
From a political-economic standpoint, criticism of the Max messenger is further fueled by the pro-war community’s hostility toward any state spending not directly related to the war. In their rhetoric, the Max project fails to meet the army’s immediate needs and is viewed as an unnecessary initiative. Despite the official patriotic and anti-Western framing of the “sovereign messenger” concept, Z-channels see it primarily as a symbol of inefficient budget spending — money that, in their view, should be directed exclusively toward supporting the military and combat operations.
Public sentiment, resistance, and the Kremlin’s countermeasures
Sociological data reveal an expanding gap between official rhetoric and public sentiment. According to the state polling center WCIOM (July 2025), 64% of respondents expressed support for the idea of a “national messenger,” 58% were aware of its development, and 55% considered it important to store user data within Russia. These figures continue to be widely promoted by state media as proof of broad public endorsement, despite growing skepticism and limited organic engagement with the platform. However, even the state-run Public Opinion Foundation (FOM), in its September 2025 data, recorded a different trend: nearly half of respondents (49%) disapprove of the blocking of calls on Telegram and WhatsApp. Only 15% supported the restrictions, while another 15% described them as “a serious loss for communication.” The independent agency ExtremeScan, which conducted surveys in August–September, found that 47% of Russians try to avoid installing Max, 34% are willing to switch if necessary, and 56% of VPN users regard the blocks as “a restriction of freedom.” According to the results of EK Stratcom’s communication campaigns, Max is perceived extremely negatively by Russian users, who nevertheless are forced to install it due to government-imposed measures. Alongside the topic of economic crisis, public dissatisfaction with the blocking of foreign messengers and the forced installation of Max ranked among the most engaging themes across EK Stratcom’s campaigns in Russia in October 2025.
The formal support for the idea of digital sovereignty, reflected in WCIOM reports, clearly does not correspond to real user behavior. Even according to government data, half of the population is not ready to abandon familiar platforms, while independent studies show widespread resistance to installing Max. This reveals the limits of administrative pressure: despite propaganda and obligatory measures, digital patriotism has not become voluntary.
The decline in trust toward Max and the wave of criticism on social media forced the authorities to involve subordinate structures responsible for crisis communication. From July to September 2025, the autonomous non-profit organization “Dialog,” supervised by the Presidential Administration, launched a large-scale campaign to “debunk fake news” about the national messenger. In practice, this effort became a tool for controlling public reaction and attempting to seize the initiative in online discourse.
According to an internal report by Dialog, over three months the organization’s specialists identified 27 key “false narratives” that had been disseminated in more than 95,000 publications, reaching a total audience of 228 million views. Among these so-called “fakes” were statements claiming that Max was used for surveillance by security agencies, that installation of the app was compulsory, and that personal correspondence was not protected. In other words, any public criticism of the government’s digital control policies was classified as “disinformation.”
The head of Dialog, Vladimir Tabak, admitted that conventional tools could no longer cope with the scale of public distrust: “The scale of the challenges we face is enormous. Destructive narratives have taken root in people’s minds, and standard rebuttals no longer work.” Tabak’s statement effectively reflects a crisis of trust in official communication - the public doesn’t perceive government denials as a credible source of information. In response, Dialog began forming a network of regional SMM teams and using targeted content monitoring methods aimed at the “early detection of negative messages.” In this context, “negative” referred not to false information but to any expression of doubt about the safety or voluntariness of using Max. Thus, the fight against “fakes” turned into a systematic suppression of criticism, where crisis PR effectively replaced genuine dialogue with society.
The activities of Dialog became the final link in building the media vertical around Max. While the Ministries and regional governors ensure administrative implementation, and national media provide propagandistic support, Dialog functions as a filter of public discourse.