Ukraine bans Telegram use on state-issued devices

Ukraine has banned the usage of the Telegram messaging level connected authoritative devices issued to authorities and subject personnel, arsenic good arsenic defence assemblage and captious infrastructure employees.

The country's almighty National Security and Defence Council (Rnbo) said this was done to "minimise" threats posed by Russia, which launched a full-scale penetration of Ukraine successful 2022.

"Telegram is actively utilized by the force for cyber-attacks, the organisation of phishing and malicious software, idiosyncratic geolocation and rocket onslaught correction," the Rnbo said connected Friday.

Telegram is wide utilized by the authorities and the subject successful some Ukraine and Russia.

In a statement, the Rnbo said the prohibition was agreed astatine a gathering of Ukraine's apical accusation information officials, the subject arsenic good arsenic lawmakers.

It said subject quality main Kyrylo Budanov had presented credible grounds of Russian peculiar services' quality to entree idiosyncratic correspondence of Telegram users, adjacent their deleted messages.

"I person ever supported and proceed to enactment state of speech, but the contented of Telegram is not a substance of state of speech, it is simply a substance of nationalist security," Budanov was quoted arsenic saying.

The Rnbo said that those officials for whom the usage of Telegram was portion of their enactment duties would beryllium exempt from the ban.

Separately, Andriy Kovalenko, caput of the Rnbo's centre connected countering disinformation, stressed the prohibition lone applied to authoritative devices - not idiosyncratic smartphones.

He added that authorities officials and subject unit would beryllium capable to proceed to support and update their authoritative Telegram pages.

Last year, a USAID-Internews survey recovered that Telegram was the apical societal level successful Ukraine for quality consumption, with 72% of Ukrainians utilizing it.

Telegram - which offers end-to-end encryption - was co-founded by Russian-born Pavel Durov and his member successful 2013.

A twelvemonth later, Durov near Russia aft refusing to comply with authorities demands to unopen down absorption communities connected the platform.

Last month, Durov, who is besides a French national, was placed nether ceremonial probe successful France arsenic portion of a probe into organised crime.

His lawsuit has fuelled a statement astir state of speech, accountability and however platforms mean content.

In July, Durov claimed that Telegram reached 950 cardinal monthly progressive users.