This was reported by Ukrinform with reference to Telegram channels of Russian politicians.

The first to announce this was a deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation Anton Gorelkin. “If the product of the extremist Meta company begins to expand functionality in the direction of mass dissemination of information, the official attitude towards its activities on the territory of the Russian Federation may be revised,” Gorelkin said. he wrote.

Chairman of the Information Policy Committee of the State Duma of the Russian Federation Oleksandr Khinshtein also believes that if WhatsApp launches information channels in Russian, “it would be correct to reconsider the attitude towards this messenger, right up to blocking it.”

A similar attitude was expressed by the chairman of the Defense and Security Committee of the Russian Federation Council. Viktor Bondarev. According to him, the emergence of the channels will lead to WhatsApp becoming an information warfare tool and a “fake source” regarding Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Kremlin spokesman At the press conference on September 14, Dmytro Peskov did not comment on proposals to block the WhatsApp messaging application.

As reported on September 13, WhatsApp announced that it has launched the Channels feature in more than 150 countries. “Thousands of organizations, sports teams, artists and opinion leaders” are already creating their channels. All users will be able to create channels in the coming months.

Meta, which owns WhatsApp, was declared an “extremist organization” in Russia in March 2022, shortly after the large-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russian troops. Facebook and Instagram are blocked in Russia. At the same time, WhatsApp messenger has not yet been affected by the restrictions.