History
In May 2022, a VK messenger app was released, but struggled to gain audience versus already used foreign messaging software. The creation of an alternative was a key objective, even at the cost of affecting numerous users. A project also with commercial ambitions, a more user-friendly super application for Russian users.[8][9]
In 2024, the VK company began developing a new messenger.[10] On 25 March 2025, VK representatives told Vedomosti about the development of a beta version of Max, outlining the messaging features, built-in payment systems for VTB Bank and Alfa-Bank and business tools for creating mini-apps and chatbots. The messenger was positioned to be independent from the VK app.[11][12][2] A beta build of the mobile app became available for download the following day.
On 4 June 2025, at a meeting between Vladimir Putin and members of the Russian Government, Minister of Digital Development Maksut Shadaev stated that Max is planned to be developed into an official national Russian messenger, similar to national messengers of other countries, naming Line (Japan), KakaoTalk (South Korea), Zalo (Vietnam) and WeChat (China) as examples.[13]
On 24 June 2025, the federal law "On the creation of a multifunctional information exchange service" was published, requiring Max to come pre-installed on officially released mobile devices in Russia after 1 September.[14][15] On 25 June, senator Olga Yepifanova announced that Gosuslugi is going to be integrated in Max.[16] In June, the VK company announced a bug bounty program with a ₽5m (~US$62000) reward for reporting security exploits in the app.[17]
On 15 July 2025, the app was promoted by the Russian government as the "national messenger".[3]
On 30 July 2025, St. Petersburg State University is working on a unified digital ecosystem for the workplace, organises processes as it has the functionality of corporate mail with an integrated calendar and contacts, an audio conferences, meeting planning tools, task management, and a convenient cloud for storing files with support for online document editing.[18] As of September 2025, the Max app has been pre-installed on all smartphones sold in Russia, while the Russian communications regulator Roskomnadzor is imposing restrictions of the use of WhatsApp and Telegram.[7][19]
On 16 March 2026, English language support was added to the application.[20][21]
