Roskomnadzor's 2018 escapade with Telegram under a rather similar situation - their attempts to block it ended up taking out vast sections of the internet (for Russians) that didn't have anything to do with Telegram.

Tying your service to vital internet infrastructure can work. It doesn't even have to be a particularly ironclad solution. In 2018, the powers that be in Russia decided it's cheaper to flood Telegram with their own propaganda, rather than block it.