Russian MP rules out blocking WhatsApp

The messenger is the only one of Meta’s three major services that is still allowed to work in the country

The Russian authorities are not considering blocking access to Meta’s WhatsApp, the head of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy, Sergey Boyarsky, said on Monday in an interview with TASS.

WhatsApp is the only one of US-based Meta’s three major services that can currently be used in Russia without the use of a VPN. In 2022, the authorities designated Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, an ‘extremist organization’ for refusing to take down criminal content, and subsequently blocked it in Russia.

“These are rumors, we cannot comment on them. At the moment there is no additional information, except for the fact that the service [WhatsApp] has been added to the registry of information distributors,” TASS quoted Boyarsky as saying.

The comments come after the deputy chairman of the Council for Digital Economy Development, Artyom Sheykin, said the messenger could be blocked as soon as next year if its parent company does not take steps to comply with the law requiring the personal data of its Russian customers to be localized.

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“The… situation with WhatsApp in Russia in 2025 will depend on the position of the messenger’s management on the issue of storing information about users and correspondence, and providing it at the request of the Federal Security Service [FSB],” Sheykin told RIA Novosti on Monday.

Boyarsky later urged his colleagues to be careful when commenting on the future of the messenger, saying that any statements should be based on facts.

“The news about possible blocking spread too loudly today, I urge my colleagues to be more careful with such vocal statements,” he said in a Telegram post.

Last week, Russia’s communications watchdog (Roskomnadzor) added WhatsApp to the registry of information distributors, which requires services to retain records of user activities, including messages, voice calls, and video interactions, for up to a year. Services on the list are also required to provide the FSB and other authorized government agencies with data on user activities, including the contents of correspondences.