How many Russian Telegram channels point readers to MAX
Russia's state-backed messenger MAX needs an audience, and the audience is on Telegram. 1.3% of Russian-language channels link to MAX in their description, 4% of those above 10,000 subscribers, and the share of active channels posting MAX links grew over the summer
MAX is the messenger built by VK and backed by the Russian government as the country's national messenger. A new messenger needs an audience, and in Russia the audience is on Telegram. We looked at how many Russian-language Telegram channels send their readers to MAX: in the descriptions of 219,553 channels with more than 1,000 subscribers, and in the posts of 20,626 channels we collected between April 27, 2026 and August 25, 2026.
- 2,948 of 219,553 Russian-language channels with a description (1.3%) link to MAX in it. Above 10,000 subscribers the share is 4.0%.
- Small channels rarely do it (0.63% below 10,000 subscribers); channels between 100,000 and a million do it most (4.9%).
- In posts, regional, job, military and organization channels link to MAX most often: local 10.5%, jobs 9.8%, military 8.6% and organization 7.6%.
- The weekly share of active Russian channels posting a MAX link rose from 1.0%–1.6% in June to 2.1%–2.2% in the last three weeks of our sample.
- Outside Russian, MAX barely registers: 56 channels in other languages link to it in their description.
In channel descriptions
A link in the description is a standing invitation: every visitor to the channel sees it. 1.3% of Russian-language channels carry one. The share grows with size up to a million subscribers and falls back to 3.6% among the 167 largest channels.
| Subscribers | Channels | Link to MAX | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1K–10K | 173,571 | 0.6% | |
| 10K–100K | 42,273 | 4.0% | |
| 100K–1M | 3,542 | 4.9% | |
| 1M+ | 167 | 3.6% |
By topic, news channels lead (3.9%), followed by organization (3.6%), beauty (3.4%) and fashion (3.2%).
| Category | Channels | Link to MAX | |
|---|---|---|---|
| News | 20,167 | 3.9% | |
| Organization | 1,052 | 3.6% | |
| Beauty | 4,502 | 3.4% | |
| Fashion | 1,136 | 3.2% | |
| Law | 622 | 2.7% | |
| Education | 6,967 | 2.6% | |
| Gardening | 513 | 2.3% | |
| Politics | 1,680 | 2.0% | |
| Events | 6,648 | 1.9% | |
| Car | 3,294 | 1.9% | |
| Finance | 1,669 | 1.9% | |
| Tech | 5,677 | 1.8% | |
| Local | 4,228 | 1.7% | |
| Food | 3,975 | 1.6% | |
| Home | 956 | 1.6% |
In posts
Posts show who is actively promoting MAX. Of the 20,626 Russian-language channels with at least 5 posts in our sample, 853 (4.1%) linked to MAX at least once. Here the leaders are different: channels that serve a place or an institution, such as city channels, job boards, organizations and local confession channels.
| Category | Channels | Link to MAX | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Local | 514 | 10.5% | |
| Jobs | 836 | 9.8% | |
| Military | 394 | 8.6% | |
| Organization | 528 | 7.6% | |
| Confession | 465 | 7.5% | |
| Law | 535 | 6.2% | |
| Parenting | 390 | 6.2% | |
| Travel | 473 | 5.9% | |
| Leisure | 417 | 5.8% | |
| Health | 369 | 5.7% | |
| Tech | 596 | 5.5% | |
| Food | 321 | 5.3% | |
| News | 629 | 4.1% | |
| Esoteric | 375 | 3.7% | |
| Real estate | 458 | 3.7% |
Our post sample grew over the summer, so counts of channels are not comparable between weeks, but the share is. It sat between 1.0% and 1.6% in June and between 2.1% and 2.2% at the end of July and in August.
| Week of | Active channels | Posted a MAX link | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apr 27 | 1,053 | 2.75% | |
| May 4 | 1,201 | 1.17% | |
| May 11 | 1,344 | 1.79% | |
| May 18 | 1,482 | 1.42% | |
| May 25 | 1,617 | 1.61% | |
| Jun 1 | 1,932 | 1.60% | |
| Jun 8 | 2,109 | 1.00% | |
| Jun 15 | 2,445 | 0.98% | |
| Jun 22 | 2,942 | 1.33% | |
| Jun 29 | 3,661 | 1.17% | |
| Jul 6 | 4,778 | 0.94% | |
| Jul 13 | 7,067 | 1.77% | |
| Jul 20 | 11,614 | 1.71% | |
| Jul 27 | 21,431 | 2.17% | |
| Aug 3 | 18,827 | 2.21% | |
| Aug 10 | 8,233 | 2.06% |
Most links point to a named MAX channel (79% of 5,901 links); 15% are invitation links and 6% point to a personal profile.
The largest channels that link to MAX
The list is led by Moscow news, regional officials and military channels, and includes the Ministry of Defence's own channel with 593K subscribers. A link to MAX does not mean a channel has left Telegram: all of them were on Telegram when we observed them.
| Channel | Subscribers | Category | Where |
|---|---|---|---|
| Москвач • Новости Москвы | 3.8M | News | Description and posts |
| ЛОРД | 1.8M | Politics | Description |
| Адам Делимханов | 1.8M | Politics | Description |
| Baza | 1.6M | News | 1 post |
| Рыбарь | 1.6M | News | Description |
| SHOT | 1.3M | News | 7 posts |
| OZON | 1.1M | Marketplace | Description |
| АРХАНГЕЛ СПЕЦНАЗА | 1.0M | News | Description |
| Двач | 965K | Humor | Description |
| Саня во Флориде | 922K | News | Description |
| Lpr 1 | 898K | News | Description |
| Сладков+ | 710K | News | 8 posts |
| Ньюсач/Двач | 652K | News | Description |
| Типичный Донецк | 604K | News | Description and posts |
| Жесть Белгород | 593K | News | 23 posts |
| Минобороны России | 593K | News | Description |
| Поддубный |Z|О|V| edition | 580K | News | Description |
| Кухня наизнанку | 533K | Food | 1 post |
| Ценная бумага | 522K | News | Description |
| Мир Михаила Онуфриенко | 499K | News | Description and posts |
The same measurement appears on channel pages: a Russian channel that links to MAX gets a line in its “What our data says” block, with the share of similar channels that do the same.
Method
Descriptions. Public Russian-language channels with more than 1,000 subscribers and a non-empty description, observed between April 14, 2026 and August 13, 2026. A channel links to MAX if its description contains a max.ru link. Language is detected from channel content; groups are left out.
Posts. Posts we collect for our event pages, published between April 27, 2026 and August 25, 2026. A channel counts as active in a week if it published at least one post we collected that week. The sample is weighted towards news and regional channels and is not a random sample of Telegram.
Limits. We see links, not audiences: we do not know how many readers followed a link or how large the channels are on MAX. A channel can promote MAX without a max.ru link, and a description we observed in April may have changed since. These figures are a snapshot and will not be updated.