It was also banned and blocked in Russia for several years. It was only unbanned when they agreed to cooperate with security services.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blocking_of_Telegram_in_Russia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blocking_of_Telegram_in_Russia
When war started, and Russia banned a lot of services like FB, they created list of communication platforms they have questions about loyalty and cooperation with Russian government. TG was not on that list and through the whole war the only issue was about Telegraph — supplementary platform to publish long notes. AFAIK there was 0 questions or criticisms to TG in those 2 years.
As for me, it says a lot