Provocation, error or preparation for shelling: why Telegram blocked Ukrainian bots

The situation with Ukrainian chatbots is covered by mystery, politicians and cyberexers see several probable causes of blocking. The services have already worked, but the threat remains. On the evening of April 28, the official chatbots of the General Intelligence Directorate, the Security Service of Ukraine (STOP Russian War), as well as the Ministry of Digital Transformation (Evorog) were blocked at the Telegram messenger.

Focus decided to figure out why it happened and what the consequences had for Ukrainians. At midnight, on April 29, the Defense Ministry of Defense reported on its channel that Telegram unreasonably blocked his "main intelligence bot" with other bots that helped to counteract Russia's military aggression. As the management emphasized, this happened contrary to the rules and public statements, the developer of the messenger.

"Despite the blocking of our bot - your personal data is safe! However, we warn that the enemy creates bots with similar names. Do not send any personal data to them," the message reads. At about 8:00 pm, the Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security (Stratkov) under the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy reported blocking these bots, but already at about 10:00 they have resumed their work.

Against this background, there were many "clones" on Telegram - fake services masked under official ones. Stratkoom noted that Russians can use such "doubles" to disseminate misinformation or collect data on Ukrainians. The Reuters news agency, citing an anonymous Telegram representative, reported that the channel lock was mistaken. However, it is strange that the chatbots associated with the war in Ukraine were injured.

The People's Deputy ("Servant of the People") and a member of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on National Security, Defense and Intelligence Alexander Fedienko suggested that the information and psychological operation of Russia could have been planned in a comment to the focus. Probably, with the help of the Telegram administration, Russian special services have blocked official chatbots, hoping to influence the residents of Ukraine.

A dissatisfied society could not understand the situation and make protests. "Look, it could be given information as if the authorities of Ukraine blocked Telegram channels. I think they decided to have such an operation because some of our deputies and experts were raising the question of blocking Telegram. That is, this topic is already heated. One puzzle, I would personally do so.

In his opinion, the operation of the Russians failed due to the fact that the official information channels of the Ukrainian authorities quickly responded and told the situation. Due to this, the attack failed. Oleksandr Fedienko added that it is difficult to work with information, so not all deputies, officials and so -called experts are understood, but representatives of the authorities had to draw conclusions from this history, and ordinary citizens too.

"I generally believe that until the Ukrainians have critical thinking (information should be checked), but have greater confidence in Telegram channels than to state information resources, our society is in the area of ​​information influence. Therefore, these are huge risks when Information awareness tools are blocked, clones can be triggered instead.

The chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Freedom of Speech, People's Deputy Yaroslav Yurchyshyn noted on Facebook that a large number of people on social networks really explained the blocking of chatbots with criticism of Telegram by the Ukrainian authorities. According to the People's Deputy, the Government of Ukraine, thanks to the attraction of the Apple platform, managed to find a way to block Russian propaganda in this messenger, and the Russian Federation decided to take revenge.

"It was not liked by the FSB, and they have pushed Durov to block what is connected with Ukraine. First of all, with hostilities. Logically expecting part of society to perceive it not as an attack by Russian special services, but on the principle" is not worth " It was criticized. " Ukrainian cybersecurity expert Konstantin Korsun described another version on his Facebook page. According to him, a week ago, the Chinese social network Tica Thore blocked several anti-Russian channels.

"China seems to be an ally of Russia, but makes a decision solely at its discretion. It is possible to decide in the Kremlin to compensate for a certain information imbalance, showing the" great brother "dullet from the blanket. He suggested. An expert considers the preparation for the offensive on the front. Russians often use cyberattacks and information operations to support hostilities on the battlefield. Usually they arrange hacker attacks on the eve of large -scale shelling.

We will remind, in 2022, specialists of Microsoft found that rocket strokes in Kiev, Dnipro, Vinnitsa and other cities coincide with cyberattacks that are associated with the Russian Federation. For example, on March 1 of that year, hackers attacked a television center in Kiev, and on the same day the rocket hit the TV. The official chatbots on Telegram were unlocked, but their "doubles" did not go anywhere and still chat in a messenger on trusting users.

At first glance, it is difficult to distinguish a real channel from a fake, but you can use the Botchecker service designed at the initiative of the Ministry of Culture and Information Protection. It works simply - it is enough to copy the name or address of the channel and insert it into a special field. For example, in the Bot "Evorog" service found 14 "clones", four of which have already been removed.

It is very important not to run into Russian forgery, because the chat bot is designed to transmit information on the location of the Armed Forces of the Armed Forces and its equipment. Having not been there, the Ukrainian risks his life, because the occupiers may come to him.

The Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security Against the background of this event, the Ukrainians not to use Telegram because of the connection of developers with Russia, in particular, the Russians are the founder of the project Pavel Durov and a number of investors. Russian influence on Telegram management is a topic for many research, but now is different.