Nearly half of Russians continue to use Telegram for news despite blocks, survey finds

Photo: EPA/MATTIA SEDDA

Nearly half (49%) of Russians said they read Telegram news channels at least once a week in March, according to a new poll released on Tuesday, despite attempts by the Russian government to block the popular social media platform.

The poll was conducted by an independent Levada Centre polling agency between 18 and 26 March, coinciding with efforts to block the platform that saw up to 80% of attempts to access it in Russia fail, as well as massive internet outages which struck Moscow and St. Petersburg that week.

The figure is down only 4 percentage points since March 2025, when 53% of respondents said they regularly consulted Telegram for news. The number of respondents who said they read Telegram channels “several times a day” also fell, from 25% to 20%.

The Levada Centre also reported the first-ever fall in the number of Russians who regularly read news online since it began collecting data in 2016 — from 76% to 72%. However, there was no corresponding increase in the number of Russians who regularly watched news on television.

The polling centre found significant disparities in news sources between different sectors of the Russian population. Russians who were younger, highly educated, more affluent, and disapproved of Vladimir Putin were more likely to access their news online or on social media. Television news was preferred by older and less affluent respondents, as well as those with no more than secondary education, and those who expressed support for Vladimir Putin.

Widespread problems accessing Telegram in Russia last month caused speculation that Russia’s planned total block against the platform, originally expected to begin on 1 April, had already started.

The Kremlin had previously instructed internet service providers to throttle traffic on Telegram, and has already blocked all voice and video calls on the platform, as part of its broader crackdown on free and uncensored internet access for Russians.

A previous poll by the Levada Centre in March found that over three-quarters of Russians had encountered difficulties accessing the internet that month, and that a majority (55%) of Russians disapproved of the authorities’ plans to block Telegram and Whatsapp.

Officially, the Kremlin blames its expansive internet restrictions on security concerns regarding Ukrainian drone strikes, financial fraud, and alleged cooperation between foreign social media platforms and Ukraine’s security services.