GROZNY, April 24. /TASS/. Chechen head Ramzan Kadyrov believes that the decision to block the cloud-based instant messaging service, Telegram, was not ‘the Russian way.’ However, by the same token he noted that he supports the corresponding ruling of Russia’s Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media, as it was taken in the state’s interests. The Chechen leader commented on these developments in a televised interview with Rossiya 24.
"I think it shouldn’t have been done this way, it is not the Russian way. That’s the way the West and Europe can play, we should be more dignified. Still, as long as this decision was taken [to block access to the messenger,] then we will support [it.] It means our country needs it," Kadyrov explained.
On April 13, Moscow’s Tagansky Court satisfied the claim of Russia’s Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media to block access to the Telegram instant messaging service in Russia due to its failure to provide keys for decrypting users’ messages to the Federal Security Service (FSB). On April 16, communication providers embarked on carrying out the blocking process. On April 16, the watchdog also started blocking the IP-addresses of Amazon’s and Google’s subnetworks that Telegram uses for operation, which resulted in reported operational failures along external web resources that were used by their hosting services.