According to several sources, Mr. Durov received an unequivocal hint from his shareholders that the time had come to close the deal and retire before the Olympics began. Mr. Durov’s shares in VKontakte were valued at $250 million to $300 million. The VKontakte founder decided it would be simpler to leave the social network and take up the challenge of starting Telegram, which has been gaining up to 400,000 new users a day.

Meanwhile, the Kremlin’s control over traditional media and social media is tightening. In January, Parliament passed a law allowing it to quickly block any undesirable website. And there’s no reason to assume that the stranglehold over independent media will be relaxed now that the Olympics are over.

Media owners have also begun to restrict the activities of editors. And the Kremlin has intensified its propaganda. The state news agency RIA Novosti and the Russia Today channel merged into a single structure. The former top manager has started publishing opinion articles on sensitive topics that diverge from the official government position. Now the agency is led by Dmitry Kiselev, an odious talk show host infamous for his suggestion that “gays’ hearts should be incinerated in ovens.”

The purchase of VKontakte was a complex and delicate operation for the Kremlin. Handing media over to loyal businessmen is not a new method of controlling journalists. The Russian state tried it in 2002, when creditors leaned on the owner of NTV, Vladimir Gusinsky, forcing him to sell the company. (NTV is now owned by Gazprom-Media.)

But VKontakte’s pro-Kremlin shareholders were too unfamiliar with information technology, and feared that if they pushed too hard Mr. Durov could have caused a blackout. Understanding this, Mr. Durov sought to maintain the image of a crazy man unafraid of litigation or losses. This is why the operation to buy out his shares was conducted with such meticulous precision.

The brightest maverick in Russia’s business world gave the millennial generation a powerful instrument of organization and self-expression. But in the end Mr. Durov and his company were unable to withstand the pressure of pro-Putin businessmen made rich by the same oil-and-gas wealth that has improved Russians’ quality of life while paralyzing their political will.

But there is generational tension when it comes to media censorship. Most of Mr. Putin’s supporters are Russians over 35; the millennial generation, which grew up on VKontakte, is at best skeptical about Mr. Putin’s flights with wild cranes or his extraction of amphoras from the Black Sea floor. Their real hero was Mr. Durov — a start-up entrepreneur who built a company now worth $3.5 billion by buying a server with the money he saved as a freelancer — and that hero is now leaving Russia.