Russian lawmakers say WhatsApp is a security threat, should leave the country

A Russian legislator Anyone who regulates the country on Friday that WhatsApp should prepare for leaving the Russian market warns that the messaging app will probably be placed on a list of restricted software.

Anton Gorelkin, deputy head of the Information Technology Committee of the Lower House of Parliament, said in a statement that Max, a messaging app that was supported into state services could gain market share if WhatsApp belongs to Meta.

“It is time for WhatsApp to prepare to leave the Russian market,” said Gorelkin, adding that Meta is called extremist organization in Russia.

Facebook and Instagram, both also owned by Meta, have been banned in Russia since 2022 when Moscow started his invasion in Ukraine in another war.

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Gorelkin made his comments after the Russian President Vladimir Putin Signed a law in the past month in which he approved the development of Max when Russia wanted to reduce its dependence on platforms such as WhatsApp and telegram.

The Russian legislators approved comprehensive legal changes this week and made fines of up to 5,000 rubles or 63 US Instagram and Facebook, and opposition politician and activists.

The proposal triggered criticism, including some Kremlin supporters such as Margarita Simonyan, a state media manager who said that journalists could not examine the activities of opposition groups such as the anti-corruption fund, which was founded by the late opposition figure Alexei Navalny.

Anton Nemkin, a member of Parliament’s IT Committee, said it was found that WhatsApp would leave Russia.

“The presence of such a service in the digital space of Russia is indeed a legal violation of national security,” said Nemkin, according to Tass, a state news agency.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that all services have to follow Russian law if he is asked whether WhatsApp could leave the country.

Russia has long tried to determine by promoting services for local services, which it describes as digital sovereignty.

However, critics have expressed concerns that Russia’s new state-supported messaging app could pursue the activities of its users and suggested that Russia could slow down the speed of WhatsApp to promote downloads from the new app.

YouTube has decreased his audience in Russia in the last year significantly to less than 10 million daily users of more than 40 million in mid -2024, as it was more difficult for people to access the video platform.

The shares of the state -controlled technology company VK, which develops domestic digital services such as VK Video, which competes by 1.9% on Friday.

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This week, the Kremlin published a list of instructions from Putin, including a guideline for the introduction of additional restrictions for the use in Russia of software, including communication services in “unfriendly countries” that have imposed sanctions against Russia.

Putin gave a period of September 1st.

With regard to Putin’s command, Gorelkin said that WhatsApp would probably be among the communication services to meet new restrictions.

Reuters contributed to this report.