The head of Ukrainian intelligence called Telegram a threat to national security

The messenger Telegram is a threat to Ukraine’s national security.

This was stated by Kyrylo Budanov, head of the Main Intelligence Directorate (GUR) of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, in an interview with “Radio Khartia,” where he shared his thoughts on how to “deal with” the issue.

According to the head of the GUR, he is not in favor of simply taking and shutting down Telegram, which he described as “quite difficult to do, but possible.”

“I support the idea of ‘formalizing’ all Telegram channels. If you want to broadcast news, please register, so that everyone understands whether this is a channel of a Russian citizen or a Ukrainian citizen. Then, there will be accountability,” stated Kyrylo Budanov.

Earlier, the Ukrainian Parliament’s Committee on Freedom of Speech stated that Ukraine could and should introduce strict regulation of Telegram, and before that, there were calls to ban it altogether.

It is worth noting that it was recently revealed that most engineers and programmers working on the Telegram team are Ukrainians.