Paul Goble
Staunton, Apr. 9 – Having decided that telegram channels are more of a threat than a useful ally, the Kremlin has launched a campaign to destroy their audience base by making them harder and potentially more dangerous to access – and continues to do so first and foremost by organizing denial of service outages in regions far from Moscow.
The Kremlin’s attack on the VChK-OGPU channel was itself surrounded by enough confusion that many were unwilling to place the blame on Putin and his regime for the blockage (meduza.io/news/2025/04/07/telegram-otritsaet-chto-kanal-vchk-ogpu-byl-udalen-administratsiey-messendzhera).
But as it has moved beyond the attack, it has undermined this news venue, one popular with Russians (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/04/russians-attracted-to-pro-regime-media.html) by orchestrating outages far from Moscow, first in the North Caucasus and now in Siberia (newizv.ru/news/2025-04-09/vechnoe-soedinenie-rossiyane-soobschili-o-massovom-sboe-v-telegram-436513).
That allows the Kremlin to escape criticism from media rights organizations, most of which are based in Moscow or now abroad and perhaps more important to avoid generating the kind of protest among Russians who are increasingly concerned about media freedom (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/04/freedom-of-speech-now-far-more.html).
Moreover, it is far easier for Moscow to take such moves in the regions because there, a single company. typically based in the capital, controls the
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