Vladimir Putin holds the torch with the Olympic flame during a ceremony in Moscow's Red Square

Research by Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan, two Russian investigative journalists who specialise in covering the security services, reveals a picture of near-total surveillance, Soldatov said.

The Russian authorities have gone to great lengths to lay on the best communications support any Olympic event has seen at the February games, including 4G coverage and free WiFi throughout the city of Sochi.

But Soldatov and Borogan's research indicates that the internet, telephone and other communications providers involved are obliged to build networks in such a way that the security services have full and unimpeded access.

“There is an element of meta-data gathering, but Russian security services are not so interested in meta-data. This is about content,” Soldatov told The Telegraph, citing an “information security concept” document laying out these measures. “The idea seems to be to make communications in Sochi totally transparent for the Russian authorities.”

The monitoring programme, which is run by the Federal Security Service, Russia’s internal security agency and the main successor to the KGB, is aided by software that helps identify key words and phrases of interest being used in electronic communications. “It is a very useful way of knowing who in a given region is talking about Navalny, for example,” said Soldatov, referring to a Russian opposition leader.

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