In just two months, every new digital device in Russia will come equipped with a brand new messenger app, named Max. Beneath its playful white-and-blue logo lies software that experts believe could allow the Kremlin to dramatically expand its capacity to spy on the Russian public.
The app, launched in March by Russian tech company VK, will be installed on every new device sold in Russia from September this year. But there are fears it will work as a “spy programme”, allowing Russia’s FSB security service to establish a rigid surveillance programme.
The app will provide not only a space for messaging and video calls, but will be a broader information system with access to government services and mobile payments, analysts told The Independent. With servers based in Russia, Max will be subject to Russian law, which grants the FSB to have access to certain materials.
WhatsApp - the global messenger app used by more than 70 per cent of Russians - is “highly likely” to be banned as Moscow looks to push people towards using Max, Mark Galeotti, a veteran observer of Russian security and politics and director of Mayak Intelligence, told The Independent.
Russian opposition journalist Andrey Okun said Max would be central to the Kremlin’s dream of constructing a “digital gulag”. Writing for the Republic website, he said in comments reported by The Times: “This will be a sterile space in which the authorities have complete control over the leisure time, motives and thoughts of citizens.”
But experts on Russian technology and surveillance say that the introduction of the app, which is said to have been developed on Vladimir Putin’s orders, is only the latest step in repeated measures to ramp up its ability to monitor the entire Russian online sphere.
“This is a normalisation of Russia's surveillance of its internet use… it's part of a long, long process,” Keir Giles, author of Russia’s War on Everybody, told The Independent. “The perceived threat from Western communications technology is not something that's new. It's something that has always been a focus for the Russian security services.”
Moscow’s security industry has for decades been frustrated by Russian citizens using foreign software such as Google, Skype and Hotmail, all of which made it much more difficult to read their messages, Mr Giles explained.
Western communications technologies have always been perceived as a threat by Russian security services. After years of trying to clamp down on services such as WhatsApp, the latest move to push Russians towards Max is “really just tidying up at this point”, he added.
Popular apps such as WhatsApp - a messenger owned by Meta, which is designated as an extremist organisation by Russia - are now facing a potential ban.
Mr Giles said the messenger app has been an “anomaly” in avoiding the Russian crackdown so far, likely due to its widespread use across the country. Figures show it is used by more than 70 per cent of people in Russia.
“It would be disruptive and unpopular to [ban it] without having a replacement available,” Mr Giles added.
Prof Galeotti said: “The Russian state looks keen to be using sticks rather than carrots by either banning or putting restrictions on WhatsApp and possibly also [messaging service] Telegram in the future, just to kind of drive people towards Max.
“Whether it's a complete ban or whether it's just simply sort of slowdowns and restrictions, I think WhatsApp is going to find itself under real pressure in Russia.”
Pushing users towards Max is unlikely to have a significant impact on Russian opposition and activism against the government, Prof Galeotti explained, because they tend to avoid WhatsApp in favour of “more seriously secure” apps such as Proton Mail and Signal.
But it may prompt a significant change in “casual dissent”, he added. “That's where it might have a freezing effect: people who might be under other circumstances willing to send messages with slightly scurrilous content about the Kremlin might think twice.”
Russia previously attempted to block the Telegram messaging app in 2018. But the attempt failed, and did not practically affect the availability of Telegram in Russia, leading it to be officially unblocked two years later.
But Mikhail Klimarev, the head of Russia’s Internet Protection Society, told The Times that he expected Moscow to renew attempts to ban it by the end of the year.
