Telegram servers are controlled by an entrepreneur, one of whose companies collaborated with the FSB

Journalists from 'Important Stories' (listed in the Russian registry of foreign agents and undesirable organizations) have established that the messenger Telegram uses IP addresses from the company Global Network Management, which is owned by Russian Vladimir Vedeneev. He himself, by his own admission, has access to the messenger's servers located in a data center in the USA.

Until 2024, Vedeneev was a co-owner of two Russian telecom companies — 'Globalnet' and 'Electrontelecom'. Later he transferred his shares to relatives.

In 2024, 'Electrontelecom' was engaged in the installation and maintenance of 'a complex for transmitting special information from stationary facilities of the FSB of Russia in the city of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region, used for conducting operational search activities'.

'Electrontelecom' also provided Telegram with more than five thousand IP addresses.

'Those who maintain the server infrastructure of Telegram are the same ones who service the secret complexes of the FSB used for surveillance of citizens,' the investigation by 'Important Stories' states.