MAX is a new Russian messenger developed by the Russian corporation VK in 2025. Kremlin ideologues explain its launch with several arguments:
– import substitution of WhatsApp and Telegram (despite the fact that the latter social platform is a Russian development, the local intelligence services do not have full control over Telegram’s servers)
– «for reasons of national security», it is necessary to create a national messenger (like China’s WeChat, Japan’s Line, or South Korea’s KakaoTalk).
As expected, Russian developers have placed a special emphasis on security and data control. State media claim that MAX is safer than foreign messengers and even requests less access to data. It is also emphasized that, unlike its Western counterparts, the Russian messenger is subject to Russian laws and regulators.
MAX is conceived as a multi-purpose digital service. Its basic functions include messaging (text, voice), audio and video calls, group chats, sending files, stickers, etc. A special role of the new messenger is integration with government services. In particular, it is planned to have a close connection with the Gosuslugi public services portal.
It has been officially stated that MAX is not going to be forced to be the only messenger, but rather should complement existing services and be available to everyone. At the same time, special emphasis is placed on its use by government agencies, businesses, and citizens for official communication. For example, St. Petersburg became the first region where city services transferred communication with residents to MAX.
Features of the “national” messenger
Despite the ambitious goals, the launch of MAX was marked by a number of obstacles. Technically, the messenger was still in beta testing (as of summer 2025), and users complained about bugs, unstable performance, and a lack of friends in the app. Although the number of registrations reached 1-2 million in the first months, the actual active audience was much smaller.
Privacy issues became the main object of criticism. It turned out that MAX collects and stores a lot of user metadata – including IP addresses, contact lists, activity time, etc. – and its privacy policy allows it to share this data with third parties, including government agencies. Additionally, it turned out that despite the rhetoric of import substitution, the app’s code uses numerous open source libraries developed in countries that Russia itself calls «unfriendly». Moreover, part of the telemetry data was sent by MAX to foreign servers, which looked ironic against the backdrop of the declared complete autonomy from foreign technologies.
One of the declared advantages of MAX was the increased degree of protection against telephone fraud. However, in practice, the technological imperfection of the messenger allowed it to be quickly adapted to manipulative schemes. The media described cases of social engineering, when attackers, under the guise of technical support for the messenger, lured people into sending SMS confirmation codes to take over their accounts or even access to public services.
The Kremlin’s new digital brainchild is being infiltrated by pushing out competitors. At first, the Russian authorities assured that they were not going to block other messengers. However, due to the slow organic growth of the audience, state resources resorted to active promotion of the messenger. In the end, an unprecedented step was taken: the government obliged electronics manufacturers to pre-install MAX on all new smartphones and tablets officially sold in Russia starting from September 1, 2025.
The Kremlin’s Digital Rake
The idea of creating its own analogs of popular Western platforms is not new to Russia. In recent years, Moscow has made several high-profile attempts at import substitution in the IT sector.
Until 2022, the RuTube video portal (owned by the state-owned Gazprom Media holding) had a relatively small audience share – most Russians watched content on YouTube. It was only after the outbreak of a full-scale war and restrictions on American social media that RuTube’s popularity spiked: its monthly audience grew from ~7.7 million in January 2022 to over 50 million in March 2022, when the authorities threatened to block YouTube. The Russian government tried to keep the audience of the hosting service by financially motivating popular Russian bloggers to change their «residence» to RuTube, adding licensed Russian films, TV channels, etc. to the platform. However, the absence of recommendation algorithms, a large share of fake views and subscribers stop bloggers and their audience from finally switching to RuTube.
Rosgram is a photo and video social networking project conceived as a Russian analog of Instagram. It was announced in March 2022 right after the blocking of Meta services in Russia. The developers promised a quick launch: in March 2022, the platform was supposed to be launched for a limited number of bloggers and investors, and in April it was to become available to «ordinary» users. Pro-Kremlin media praised the initiative, as millions of Instagram users were looking for an alternative for communication and business. However, in practice, Rosgram faced problems at the outset: the project’s website was unstable and often crashed. It even turned out that it was made in a hurry using a website builder. The platform was clearly not ready for the influx of users. As a result, the release to the general public was delayed; a limited beta version appeared only at the end of 2022, and the general public had already heard little about it. Instead, many businesses and bloggers either moved to the Russian VKontakte network, switched to Telegram, or started using VPNs to access Instagram directly.
It is premature to assess whether MAX will meet the same fate as RuTube or Rosgram. However, certain steps taken by the Russian authorities, such as the mandatory pre-installation of the messenger on phones, indicate fears of another failure and a desire to «play it safe». Despite the fact that, from the point of view of the Russian authorities, the need to develop their own analogues of Western services is dictated by geopolitical isolation, sanctions, and the need to strengthen control over the information field, the low competitiveness of «national» analogues is pushing Russians to look for ways to circumvent blocking.
Mykyta Kuzmenko
