Reminder: telegram is a r*ssian honeypot that is made with fsb money.

I think they used dirty money for VK and then funded telegram with VK’s forced sellout to the Russian dictatorship, but now they are quite on their own? If I’m wrong, I would really like to dig deeper, maybe you have links to help me?

The founder had to flee Russia for his anti Putin stance.

Telegram wouldn’t be used by Ukrainians and Ukrainian government officials if it was a FSB tool. The Ukrainian government knows better than random forum posters.

Telegram can read all your text mesasges, unless you specifically setup an encrypted one-on-one channel between users that’s tied to a specific device, so basically nobody is using that. It does not have to actively siphon the conversations to a state actor, an exploit chain or the good old infiltration by a rogue employee is enough.

Disclaimer: I use telegram, but have zero expectations of privacy there.

It also wouldn’t be the first time the russian government is using an organization for their own agenda abroad, while banning it in russia.