The Important Stories investigation concerns GNM, which leases IP addresses to Telegram and, according to journalists, owns a router in a data center in Miami. Telegram and GNM deny the allegations. BBC Russian Service has gathered answers to key questions about how well protected correspondence is.
Where messages are stored
There is no data indicating that Telegram's servers are located in Russia. The company's website states that when registering from the UK or countries of the European Economic Area, data is stored in the Netherlands. According to Important Stories, one of the data centers is located in Miami.
Regular messages are not end-to-end encrypted: they arrive at servers, are encrypted and stored, and are decrypted when necessary for delivery to the device. Theoretically, access to a server allows reading correspondence, former VKontakte and Telegram employee Anton Rozenberg told Novy Prospekt in 2024. The exception is "secret chats," where encryption occurs on devices and the server cannot decrypt the message.
Metadata and SORM
Even in a "secret chat," the server knows who is sending a message to whom, but not its content. Telegram does not hide that it may collect metadata — IP address, device information, username change history — and store it for up to 12 months. In Russia, SORM equipment is used to analyze such data; since 2018, all telecom operators have been required to install it.
If Important Stories is right and Telegram cooperates with Russian intelligence services, they could monitor users worldwide, as they monitor Russians with SORM, BBC notes. Journalist David Frenkel drew attention to the possible use of such a method in 2022 during the war in Ukraine, when a detainee was asked to send screenshots of correspondence. GNM denies this: "Even when intercepting network traffic, it is impossible to determine who is communicating with whom or to decrypt a message without a key. The vulnerability described by OCCRP has not been technically confirmed."
The role of GNM and Vedeneyev's connections
GNM owns IP addresses and leases them, including to Telegram. Some addresses lead to servers in Miami, and according to Important Stories, the company owns a router in the local data center. Cybersecurity expert Michał Woźniak told Important Stories that control over routers allows seeing user identifiers and device-related data flows. GNM insists: "All Telegram equipment is isolated and managed by Telegram Messenger. No GNM equipment was used for analysis, filtering, or monitoring of Telegram traffic."
Telegram also stated that the company has contracts with dozens of suppliers worldwide, but none of them "has access to Telegram's data or confidential infrastructure," and all servers belong to Telegram and are maintained by its employees.
Important Stories links GNM to Vladimir Vedeneyev, a native of Tolyatti who, according to journalists, has long known Telegram founder Pavel Durov. In 2018, Vedeneyev signed documents for Panama-based Telegram Corp. as financial director; GNM explained to BBC that he did so by power of attorney and that the position was "technical and informal." Since 2020, Telegram's IP addresses, now owned by GNM, were held by the Russian company GlobalNet, whose beneficiary was Vedeneyev; it is now controlled by his relatives. Another co-owner of GlobalNet is Roman Venediktov, who served for almost ten years at the Main Center for Testing and Control of Space Systems of the Ministry of Defense. GlobalNet provides communication services to Russian state enterprises, including in the defense sector, and to the Main Research and Computing Center of the Administrative Department of the President.
Until 2024, Vedeneyev owned the company ElectronTelecom, which transferred more than 5,000 IP addresses to Telegram; according to journalists, one of its key government clients is the FSB. GNM told BBC: "Since 2024, GlobalNet and ElectronTelecom have been completely separated from GNM Inc., including a change of ownership. Since 2022, GNM Inc. has had no employees in Russia and has never had assets or contracts in the Russian Federation." However, according to Important Stories, half of GNM's employees live in Russia, and the company has an office in St. Petersburg.
Mikhail Klimarev, head of the Internet Protection Society, wrote in his Telegram channel that he tends to agree with GNM's arguments: "To accuse an operator of having anything to do with someone's traffic just because it carries it is, to put it mildly, strange." Hosting specialist Filipp Kulin responded more briefly: "That's forcing a snake onto a hedgehog."
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