Ukraine bans use of Telegram on government-issued devices

Ukraine has banned the use of the Telegram messaging platform on official devices issued to government and military officials, as well as security sector and critical infrastructure workers. The country’s powerful National Security and Defense Council (Rnbo) said this was done to “minimize” threats from Russia.

Telegram is being actively used by the enemy for cyber-attacks, phishing and malware distribution, user geolocation and correcting missile attacks, Rnbo said on Friday.

In a statement, Rnbo said the ban was agreed to at a meeting of Ukraine’s top information security officials, the military and lawmakers. It said that the head of military intelligence, Kyrylo Budanov, had presented credible evidence of Russian special services’ ability to access Telegram users’ private correspondence, even their deleted messages.

“I have always supported freedom of speech and will continue to support it, but the Telegram issue is not an issue of freedom of speech, it is an issue of national security,” Budanov was quoted as saying.

Officials whose use of Telegram was part of their work duties are exempted from the ban, Rnbo said. Andriy Kovalenko, head of the Rnbo Center for Countering Disinformation, emphasized that the ban only applies to official devices, not personal smartphones. Government officials and military personnel will be able to continue to maintain and update their official Telegram pages, he added.