Russia’s War on Telegram Hilariously Backfired, Claims Pavel Durov

Russia’s efforts to block Telegram and restrict VPN access resulted in a significant nationwide banking outage on April 3, disrupting financial services across the country. Sberbank, VTB, and T-Bank all reported widespread service failures, with payment terminals, ATMs, and mobile banking apps affected. Technical experts suggest the VPN-blocking measures contributed to the disruption, potentially through the erroneous blocking of IP addresses used by banking infrastructure. Despite a full block imposed around April 1, Telegram founder Pavel Durov claims the app maintains 65 million daily active users in Russia, demonstrating the failure of the government’s attempt to migrate users to the state-backed MAX messaging app. VPN usage is surging as Russia continues to restrict access, with authorities increasing restrictions on VPN services and even considering fines for users, highlighting the collateral risks of aggressive internet filtering.

(Source：BeInCrypto)