Durov had long claimed he was in exile from Russia and couldn’t return and that he was a UAE/French citizen. then records leaked that showed 120 border crossings from 2016-2021 and that he still held a Russian passport. One such border crossing was a flight from St Petersburg on June 18, 2020 which happens to be the same day that Telegram was unblocked in Russia… Lots and lots of smoke..
The Kyiv Independent article is a good summary.
https://kyivindependent.com/opinion-examining-telegram-found...
I was hit pretty hard when Russia was trying to block telegram; I don’t buy that it was a coverup. And there is only a single (anonymous) source for that whole article.
That said, would be good to rely on no central authority and use Matrix instead; or at least put OTR/Ratchet on top of Telegram with custom clients.
TG does not seem hostile to third party clients the same way Whatsapp/Signal are.
It would otherwise serve the USA for people to prefer Signal over TG (due to jurisdiction).