Vyacheslav showed Durov the increasingly popular Facebook, after which the friends decided to create a new Russian social network.

Pavel Durov attracted his older brother Nikolai, a multiple winner of international math and programming competitions, to develop the site.

In February 2007 the site reached a user base of over 100,000 and was recognized as the second largest company in Russia's nascent social network market.

[12] Similar to many social networks, the platform's fundamental features revolve around private messaging, sharing photos, posting status updates, and exchanging links with friends.

Mail.ru Group used part of the money to acquire 7.5% of the social network for $112.5 million at a valuation of the entire project of 1.5 billion dollars.

In the summer of 2011, Mirilashvili and Leviev were ready to accept in payment owned by Mail.ru Group shares of Facebook, Groupon, and Zynga, but the deal failed due to Durov's unwillingness to sell a stake on MRG terms.

In March 2012, Durov "accidentally" became plugged into the negotiations where Mirilashvili and Leviev discussed selling their stakes directly to Mail.ru Group's main investor, Alisher Usmanov.

On the same day, Durov deleted the pages of the first co-investors, stopped contacting them, and soon announced that VKontakte would postpone its IPO indefinitely.

In January 2014, VK's founder Pavel Durov sold his 12% stake in the company to Ivan Tavrin, the CEO of MegaFon, which is controlled by Alisher Usmanov.

[42][43] Durov then claimed the company had been effectively taken over by Vladimir Putin's political faction,[42][44] suggesting his dismissal was the result of both his refusal to hand over personal details of users to federal law enforcement and his refusal to hand over the personal details of people who were members of a VKontakte group dedicated to the Euromaidan protest movement.

[42][44] Durov then left Russia and stated that he had "no plans to go back"[44] and that "the country is incompatible with Internet business at the moment".

[43] On 16 September 2014, the Mail.ru group bought the remaining 48% stake of VK from United Capital Partners (UCP)[45] for $1.5 billion,[45] thus becoming the sole proprietor of the social network.

[58] In November 2014, the head of the Roskomnadzor, Maxim Ksenzov, said that VKontakte would complete the process of legalization of the content at the beginning of 2015.

[42] Durov then claimed Vladimir Putin's allies had, in effect, taken over the company,[42][44][63] and suggested his ousting was the result of his refusal to hand over personal details of users to the Russian Federal Security Service and his refusal to shut down a VK group dedicated to anti-corruption activist Alexei Navalny.

[64] Some critics have accused the blacklist as the latest in a series of suspicious incidents to have happened to the website in recent months as a way for the Russian government to increase their stake in, and control of the site.

[citation needed] In January 2016, China banned VKontakte, claiming that it was manipulating web content and cooperating with the Kremlin.

[68] In May 2017, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko signed a decree to impose a ban on Mail.ru and its widely used social networks including VKontakte and Odnoklassniki as part of its continued sanctions on Russia for its annexation of Crimea and involvement in the war in Donbas.

[23][69][70] Reporters Without Borders condemned the ban, calling it a "disproportionate measure that seriously undermines the Ukrainian people's right to information and freedom of expression.

Reuters linked Dobrodeev's resignation to the acquisition of VK's majority interest by two state-owned companies that happened the same month.

[73] On 12 May 2022, in connection with the sanctions imposed by the European Union (EU), NEPLP decided to limit the activity of "VKontakte" ("vk.com"), "Odnoklassniki" ("ok.ru") and "Moy Mir" ("my.mail.ru") social medias in Latvia.

The decision was made because NEPLP has evidence that the platforms are owned and controlled by Yury Kovalchuk and Vladimir Kiriyenko.

The mentioned persons are subject to EU sanctions in connection with undermining the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine.

[75][76] On 28 September, the Russian communications regulator Roskomnadzor issued a statement demanding an explanation for the removal of the VK application from the App Store.

AWP includes mail, calendar, cloud storage, instant messenger, supports audio and video calls.

The participants were invited to develop projects united by a common idea: “Make it Simple!” (Russian: «Упрощайте!»).

The “Search for Lost Cats” (Russian: «Поиск пропавших котиков») app won the “Developers’ Choice” category.

[86] In 2011, Pavel Durov and Yuri Milner created Start Fellows, a grant program founded to support projects in the field of technology.

[92] The first VK Cup, a programming championship for young programmers aged 13–23, was held on 16 July 2012 in Saint Petersburg, Russia.

The VK Music Awards were produced by Timur Bekmambetov and the Bazelevs Company with Pavel Volya hosting the event.

This festival traditionally takes place on a weekend in July at the 300th Anniversary Park [ru] (Russian: Парк имени 300-летия Санкт-Петербурга) in St. Petersburg, Russia.