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I think they’re playing ball, otherwise Telegram would have been declared a “foreign agent” like any other free press

That’s pure conspiracy thinking. Their service has been more or less blocked countrywide in Russia multiple times in the past, without too much success. Pavlov Durov has been publicly anti Putin since 2014 and exiled himself following euromaiden. Telegram has never been a Russian company, it was Berlin based, and is now in Dubai.

All of this has been public information since years, there isn’t any proof of anything malevolent happening with the service.

Durov brothers left Russia few years ago; Pavel seems to be moving around while Nikolai stays in Saint Kitts and Nevis.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telegram_(software)#Developmen...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blocking_of_Telegram_in_Russia

Mostly it was a spectacle for outsiders. Otherwise how its possible to explain that Durov continue to doing business and operate in Russia after?

IMHO - it would not be possible for him to leave russia alive without getting some tradeoff with Russian intelligence