Russia's Foreign Ministry says, no, it's not hypocrisy when it continues to use an instant messenger banned in Russia

Maria Zakharova, the spokesperson for Russia’s Foreign Ministry, says she doesn’t see any hypocrisy in the ministry continuing to post updates on Telegram, despite the Russian federal censor’s efforts to block the instant messenger. She says the mid-April 2018 court ruling instructing Roskomnadzor to ban the service doesn’t apply to the Foreign Ministry.

“We consulted with Roskomnadzor and got all the necessary explanations about this. The ban doesn’t extend to working on Telegram itself,” Zakharova told the newspaper Kommersant. She says she personally stopped using the app “because of service disruptions.”