Russian state media is urging users to delete Telegram, citing risks from cyberattacks to overheating phones. Is it actually unsafe?
In recent weeks, a series of articles with near-identical headlines has appeared across Russian state-controlled regional media, warning readers to delete Telegram from their phones before March 31. At the same time, the pro-Kremlin tabloid Baza published a piece claiming that Russians’ iPhones have been overheating and breaking down because VPNs (often used to access Telegram) put too much load on the processor. All of this is unfolding against the backdrop of Telegram’s slow but apparently irreversible blocking by the Russian authorities. Meduza teamed up with the fact-checking project Provereno Media to make sense of this wave of warnings.
Soaring oil prices could bring the Kremlin billions — but they still won’t fix the Russian economy
In just a matter of weeks, the Middle East war has taken on enormous significance for Russia’s leadership. After the first two months of the year, the country’s federal budget deficit had already spiraled out of control. But the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz — through which roughly 27 percent of global seaborne oil and petroleum products trade passes — triggered a sharp spike in commodity prices. This may allow the Kremlin to hold the annual deficit to its target of 1.6 percent and keep military spending at the top of its priorities. Even so, this windfall won’t resolve the deep structural problems plaguing a war-battered economy. Meduza explains what the high price of oil means for Russia’s pocketbook.
A mysterious group is calling on Russians to protest the Kremlin’s Internet restrictions. Is it a trap?
In the last month, accounts linked to a movement calling itself “Scarlet Swan” began appearing on TikTok and Telegram in Russia. Its members — young men and women, including minors, as the outlet Verstka has reported — are urging Russians to take to the streets on March 29 to protest the Kremlin’s intensifying Internet restrictions. However, opposition activists and journalists have warned that the project could be a setup orchestrated by Russian security services. On March 23, the movement’s Telegram channel said that one of its administrators had sold their account to associates of Vladislav Pozdnyakov, a pro-war blogger and founder of the far-right organization ”Male State” — though minutes later the same channel dismissed the claim as fabricated.
The FSB ran ads offering Russians quick cash to commit sabotage. The agency called it a ‘social experiment.’
The Sverdlovsk branch of the Russian Security Service (FSB) recently ran what it described as a “social experiment” — posting Telegram ads promising “easy money” and then asking those who responded to commit acts of sabotage.
The first Russian officer to speak out in detail about the torture of Ukrainian POWs has now spent three years in the U.S. Here’s his story.
In February 2022, Konstantin Efremov, a Russian military officer from the Republic of North Ossetia, was deployed as part of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Three months later, he quit the military, left the country, and went public with what he had seen on the front line. In interviews, Efremov spoke about Russian troops torturing Ukrainian POWs, abusing civilians, and mistreating their own soldiers who refused to fight.
How Russia’s school history lessons are reframing Stalin, Gorbachev, and the war in Ukraine
Since 2023, history in Russian high schools has been taught from a single, standardized textbook, whose lead author is Putin aide Vladimir Medinsky. Its creators have made no secret of the fact that their main goal is to “foster patriotism.” Starting in September 2026, all schools will switch to the same textbook series, beginning in fifth grade. In an interview with the Russian newspaper Kommersant, Vladislav Kononov, the project’s executive secretary and a presidential administration official, discussed the thinking behind it. Meduza translated some of his more notable remarks into English.
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Anonymous social media accounts are calling for the secession of an Estonian county on Russia’s border. Tallinn says it’s Moscow’s doing.
In conversations about a hypothetical Russian invasion of NATO territory, analysts frequently discuss the city of Narva, Estonia, as a possible target. Narva sits directly on the Estonian-Russian border, and 85 percent of its population is ethnic Russian. This has raised fears among some observers that Moscow could stage an attack under the same pretext it used in Ukraine, claiming a need to “protect” Russian speakers from persecution. In March 2025, an Estonian anti-propaganda watchdog flagged a cluster of social media accounts promoting a so-called “Narva People’s Republic,” deliberately echoing the language Moscow used to legitimize its backing of the Donetsk and Luhansk “people’s republics” before its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The accounts have since drawn responses from Estonia’s prime minister, its intelligence services, and international media. But who is behind them — and what they actually want — remains murky. Here’s what we know.
Meduza’s readers in Russia on life without Internet
Last week, Meduza asked its readers in Russia how they’re living amid mobile Internet shutdowns and restrictions, which have become worse in recent weeks. We received hundreds of responses from dozens of cities. Together, they show how much everyday life has changed — and how much harder basic tasks have become. We’re sharing some of the most notable responses, translated into English.
The Kremlin appears to be blocking Telegram. Meduza asked its Russia-based readers how well the crackdown is working.
Late last week, many Telegram users in Russia began reporting serious disruptions, according to outage trackers Downdetector and Sboy.rf. Reports that Russian authorities planned to permanently block the popular messaging app in early April had been circulating for some time. But according to industry experts, the process may have begun two weeks ahead of schedule.
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