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Why is Korean chatting app KakaoTalk suddenly surging in Russia?

Published: 01 Apr. 2026, 07:00

CHO YONG-JUN
[email protected]

The KakaoTalk app is seen on a mobile phone [REUTERS/YONHAP]

With a bit of unintentional help from the Kremlin, Korean instant messenger service KakaoTalk is surging in popularity in Russia, giving Korea's dominant chatting app a foothold on foreign shores after over a decade of failure.

Kakao’s messenger app boasted an average of 46.35 million monthly active users in Korea — out of a population of 51 million — last year, according to data from tracker Mobile Index, meaning that over 90 percent of the country used KakaoTalk.

Despite such numbers, the messenger never took off overseas, beaten by competition from already established services like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and WeChat.

But in a sudden and ironic development, KakaoTalk shot to the top of Russia's App Store in March, following signs that Moscow would begin blocking Telegram.

A person poses for a photo while holding a smartphone next to a screen showing the crossed logo of Telegram messaging app against the backdrop of the Russian flag, in this illustration taken Feb. 12 [REUTERS/YONHAP]

The Korean messenger’s unexpected surge in popularity comes as Russian authorities attempt to control user expression and the flow of information by banning encrypted messenger services. Russia’s federal agency responsible for controlling mass media, Roskomnadzor, banned the open-source, encryption-focused messenger service Signal in 2024, and signs of the same thing happening to Telegram emerged this year.

Despite Telegram being a Russian-made service and widely used by the Russian public, state authorities and even soldiers on the battlefield, the Kremlin blames Telegram as a source of terrorism and crime, as the founder has resisted handing over data to government authorities.

Speculation that the Russian authorities would officially block Telegram starting April 1 surfaced in Russian media, including RBC and The Moscow Times, with testimony also emerging that the Telegram app has been slowing down in Russia in recent months.

The Kremlin-approved alternative is Max, developed by local social media giant VK, which operates VK Video, a Russian version of YouTube. Max combines social media, government services, identification services and booking services as a “super app” like China’s WeChat, but is plagued by security and privacy concerns.

This illustration photo shows the Russia MAX messenger logo displayed on a smartphone in Mulhouse, eastern France, on Feb. 13 [AFP/YONHAP]

With Western messaging services like WhatsApp, Discord and Signal already blocked by the Kremlin, Russians had no choice but to go for the Korean app, which currently faces no known government restrictions.

“We are very much aware of KakaoTalk’s increased traffic in Russia recently,” a spokesperson at Kakao told the Korea JoongAng Daily, without sharing how much the increase has been.

The results are visible — KakaoTalk was No. 2 on Russia’s App Store in late March, according to a report from Ukrainian media outlet The New Voice of Ukraine, and the app is currently at No. 4 in the store's Social Networking category, which also includes WhatsApp and Threads.

The Russian rush to KakaoTalk could come with real advantages for privacy-conscious users, according to Korea University Professor Lim Jong-in, who specializes in information security and cyber defense.

"KakaoTalk has to comply with the Korean authorities when it asks for conversation data in the cloud, as the cloud servers are physically located in Korea," the professor said. "But the powers of the Russian authorities are limited when the servers are not in Russia."

However, for many Koreans, the sudden migration is a dark irony that harkens back to a decade ago, when Koreans themselves tried to ditch KakaoTalk in 2014, fearing prosecutors would gain access to private KakaoTalk messages during investigations.

KakaoTalk’s regular chats are encrypted, but the chats are stored in the company’s cloud for a certain period. The Secret Chat, introduced right after the 2014 surveillance fears, added end-to-end encryption but heavily restricted KakaoTalk's features.

BY CHO YONG-JUN [[email protected]]