> It also gives him a way of dealing with the increasingly mandatory state-controlled national messaging app, Max. The service has no end-to-end encryption but is needed to access any state service

That's a lie. No state service requires Max for access.

>Now Russia is increasingly shifting to “white lists” — strictly limited lists of government-approved sites that Russians may access, with other sites blocked.

First the article cites some stupid people complaining about mobile internet shutdowns needed to complicate Ukrainian drone attacks. Next the article presents the government's efforts to mitigate the effect of the mobile internet shutdowns on the civilian live by whitelisting services that must be always available as something nefarious.