No messaging app is reliable – Kremlin
Russian government employees should not use any messenger app for official purposes as none of them are safe in terms of information security, including Telegram, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has said.
Speaking with journalists on Tuesday about the arrest of Telegram founder Pavel Durov in France, Peskov denied that the presidential administration had asked officials to delete messages and “clean up” their correspondence.
He warned, however, that government employees should refrain from using any messaging application in official communication, noting that “no messenger is reliable” enough to provide information security and Telegram is no exception.
“This is why in the [presidential] administration we do not use any messenger for official purposes, because this would simply be a violation of official rules and official ethics,” Peskov noted.
Durov was detained by French authorities on Saturday after arriving in Paris from Azerbaijan by private jet. The 39-year-old Russian citizen also holds the passports of France, the UAE and St. Kitts and Nevis.
France on Monday revealed a list of preliminary charges against Durov, accusing the tech entrepreneur of “facilitating” alleged illegal activities on his platform – ranging from drug dealing and money laundering to child pornography – by refusing to cooperate with French investigators going after an unnamed third party.
The Kremlin has thus far refused to comment on Durov’s arrest, with Peskov telling reporters on Monday that Moscow has to “wait for the situation to clear up before we say anything.”
However, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Tuesday that Durov’s detention proved that Telegram is a “truly” secure platform.
“Now that Durov was clearly taken away on someone’s advice and threatened with terrible punishment, in a bid to somehow gain access to the encryption codes, now it has already been proven by the actions of the French that Telegram is a truly reliable and popular network,” Lavrov stated.
French President Emmanuel Macron has claimed that the Telegram founder’s detention was part of “an ongoing judicial investigation” and was “in no way a political decision.”
Telegram has denied any wrongdoing, stating that it is “absurd to claim that a platform or its owner are responsible for abuse of that platform.” The platform complies with EU laws, including the bloc’s Digital Rights Act (DSA) and anti-Russian sanctions, the company added.
Meanwhile, numerous opinion leaders, both in the West and Russia, have slammed the development as a crackdown on free speech, suggesting that the US was behind the arrest.
