According to the Important Stories investigation, end-to-end encryption in Telegram is used only in "secret chats," which are used by about 2% of users. The remaining messages, according to the outlet, are decrypted and stored on Telegram's servers, so whoever controls the servers could technically gain access to the correspondence.
Digital security expert Michał "Rysiek" Woźniak explained to Important Stories that Telegram does not use end-to-end encryption when transmitting data over the internet. According to him, whoever the messenger's traffic passes through gains access to a wealth of user data — including message timestamps, IP addresses, and more.
A company from Antigua and Barbuda
The investigators found that the entire Telegram infrastructure is managed by a single company from the Caribbean islands of Antigua and Barbuda — Global Network Management (GNM). It is de facto located in Russia, and its owner is Vladimir Vedeneyev, a native of Tolyatti. Former Telegram employees, according to the outlet, knew nothing about Vedeneyev, even though his company controls the routers that distribute traffic through Telegram's servers.
Until 2020, the messenger's IP addresses were controlled by the St. Petersburg company Globalnet, owned by Vedeneyev and his acquaintance Roman Venediktov — a military officer who served at the Main Center for Testing and Control of Space Assets of the Ministry of Defense in the town of Shchyolkovo-7. Other companies owned by Venediktov, the investigation alleges, cooperate directly with the FSB.
Potential victims and theories
The journalists conclude that the victims of potential cooperation between Telegram and the FSB could include several Russian activists who discussed resistance actions and anti-war protests in the messenger. Their stories were published by Wired in 2023. In addition, according to Important Stories, the FSB could have used Telegram to access messages that Russian women sent to Ukrainian bots, as well as data on Ukrainian activists in the occupied territories.
Rights defenders from Pervy Otdel (First Department) note that they learned about criminal cases that the FSB opens for correspondence with bots and feedback accounts of Ukrainian Telegram channels. They put forward several theories as to how the security services obtained this data; one of them is the messenger's undisclosed cooperation with the security services.
Durov's visits to Russia
According to Important Stories, the "myth of exile" of Pavel Durov from Russia also does not correspond to reality. Since his "final departure" in 2014, it turns out he visited Russia more than 50 times — in particular, when he ran into problems launching the TON cryptocurrency. At the time, the entrepreneur owed almost two billion dollars to his investors, among them GRU agent Jan Marsalek, Russian oligarchs, and companies operating in the occupied territories of Ukraine. In addition, during one of Durov's visits to St. Petersburg in June 2020, Roskomnadzor dropped all complaints against Telegram and stopped attempts to block it.
According to members of the app's team, they knew nothing about Durov's visits to Russia.
Earlier, Pavel Durov stated that he had established contact with French security services and would provide them with information that could be used to identify Telegram users. In addition, in 2021, shortly before the State Duma elections, Durov blocked the Smart Voting bot on Telegram, which helped choose a protest candidate and defeat United Russia. He explained this as compliance with the "Day of Silence" and praised himself for Telegram remaining the freest messenger in the world.
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