As Russian troops grind into eastern Ukraine, the Kremlin is advancing on another front in its battle for total control. This time, the target is its own population.

Taking a page from the Chinese playbook, Moscow is pushing its citizens to use a messaging app that gives the government access to user data, while isolating them from the rest of the internet.

The app, called Max, has drawn comparisons to China’s WeChat for its lack of end-to-end encryption and a privacy policy that allows authorities to access personal information such as chat logs, contacts, photos and location data.

“The app’s makers are basically saying they’ll hand everything over,” said Mikhail Klimarev, head of the exiled Russian Internet Protection Society.

To register on Max, a user must provide a Russian or Belarusian phone number, which in turn requires a government ID, meaning that any data collection is traceable to an individual.

“Anything you do on there will be available to the FSB,” Klimarev added, referring to Russia’s Federal Security Service. 

Earlier this month, Max — whose logo is an innocuous speech bubble on a bluish background — announced that its user base had grown from 1 million people in early June to 30 million in September.

While that’s still far fewer than its rivals — WhatsApp remains by far the most popular messaging app in Russia, with an estimated 96 million users, followed by Telegram with some 90 million users — Max has a powerful backer: the state. 

It was only this June that Putin signed a law for the creation of a “national messenger,” with Russian tech company VK chosen to develop it soon after. The company is effectively controlled by the state gas company Gazprom and Yuri Kovalchuk, a top ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. It’s run by the son of Putin’s aide Sergei Kiriyenko. Both men are under U.S. sanctions.

As of the beginning of this month, all new phones sold in Russia must be pre-installed with the app. 

Meanwhile, Russia’s telecoms agency Roskomnadzor this summer began blocking calls on WhatsApp and Telegram. While the government described the move as an effort to protect users from scammers and terrorists, WhatsApp, owned by Meta, condemned it as an attempt “to violate people’s right to secure communication.”

Independent media report that civil servants, bank employees and hospital staff have faced pressure to switch to Max. Meanwhile, the app is being promoted by officials at various levels and in social media campaigns as reliable and safe.

In a widely circulated video posted online by a blogger in western Russia’s Penza, city loudspeakers can be heard grimly warning residents not to upload footage of drones, before abruptly switching to promote Max as a way to “communicate conveniently and securely.”

A parallel campaign has featured Russian celebrities and influencers singing the app’s praises on social media. In one video, an influencer showed surprise that it worked “even inside the parking lot.” Аnother blogger was blown away that it could be used “even in the elevator.”

Though still under development, Max is being touted as a tool that will, like WeChat, eventually include government, banking and commercial services. 

VK and the Russian president’s press office did not reply to requests for comment.

Putin’s Great Firewall

Max is the latest step in Putin’s ambition to control the internet. 

In 2019 the Russian president signed a law to create a “sovereign internet,” shielded from foreign influence. And since Putin’s all-out attack on Ukraine in 2022, the Kremlin has cracked down on online anti-war activism, with hundreds of criminal cases filed, according to OVD-Info, a police monitoring organization. 

Thousands of websites have been blocked, and this summer the government criminalized searching for content designated as “extremist,” such as information connected to the anti-corruption foundation of the late opposition leader Alexei Navalny, what Russia calls the “LGBT” movement, and even Meta. Advertising VPNs, a tool that allows Russians to elude identification and bypass censorship, has also been outlawed.

Sarkis Darbinyan, co-founder of the internet rights group RKS Global, described Max as the final brick in the Kremlin’s effort to build its own version of China’s Great Firewall.

“It’s trying to control communication between citizens, not just their behavior on public platforms,” Darbinyan said. 

Like other tech experts, he said there’s nothing to stop Max from handing the authorities a user’s entire communication history, including unsent drafts and deleted messages. Draft dodgers, journalists, those in the LGBTQ+ community and other politically vulnerable groups should be worried, he said. 

“It’s a spook in your pocket,” Darbinyan added.

Since a Russian or Belarusian phone number is required, the app is difficult to access abroad, isolating residents from relatives and contacts outside the country, just as the government restricts other forms of communication.

‘Total control’

Max’s rollout has not been without friction. 

The video from the parking lot has become the butt of countless memes, and Russia’s jingoistic military bloggers, many of whom have amassed huge followings on Telegram, have publicly criticized it as digital overreach. 

According to a report by independent news outlet Meduza, government officials are also wary of the app. 

Maxim, a 27-year-old schoolteacher from Moscow, whose surname is being withheld for safety reasons, said he wouldn’t be installing Max and criticized the measures against WhatsApp and Telegram. 

“It’s an attempt by the government to limit our ability to write and communicate with each other,” he said. “I already can’t call abroad in a simple way like I used to.”

Nikolai Petrov, a senior analyst at the London-based New Eurasian Strategies Center, said the Kremlin’s recent rush for digital control could have been influenced by U.S. President Donald Trump’s push for peace in Ukraine. 

“For Vladimir Putin, it is very important to silence any potential voices of protest from across the entire political spectrum,” Petrov said, “including ultranationalists,” who he said would be against anything short of Ukraine’s total capitulation.

But like many independent Russian analysts, Petrov said he sees no sign the Kremlin is genuinely interested in peace. Moves like the rollout of Max are geared toward “ensuring complete control over the situation, no matter how the events unfold,” he said. 

Just a few years ago, the Chinese model of a controlled internet seemed technologically and politically unthinkable in Russia. Not anymore.

“Today the Kremlin controls 90-95 percent of communication,” Petrov said. “Tomorrow it’ll be 99 percent.”