Putin signed a directive to create Russian messenger

I would think all nation states in hypothesis want to think about this, and 48h off-line isolated state networks dependency checks. Just because Russia does, doesn't make it bad. Because Russia did, not doing it means you don't know your structural weaknesses until you're at the sharp point in an adversarial situation, against Russia. (And others)

> as Moscow strives to reduce its dependence on platforms like WhatsApp and Telegram

and so they can block these apps, I'd bet