Russian President Vladimir Putin launched Russia's invasion of Ukraine in the early-morning hours of February 24, targeting several key cities with military strikes. Again, in contrast to Facebook, Google and Twitter, Telegram's founder Pavel Durov runs his company in relative secrecy from Dubai. After fleeing Russia, the brothers founded Telegram as a way to communicate outside the Kremlin's orbit. They now run it from Dubai, and Pavel Durov says it has more than 500 million monthly active users. But the Ukraine Crisis Media Center's Tsekhanovska points out that communications are often down in zones most affected by the war, making this sort of cross-referencing a luxury many cannot afford. "Like the bombing of the maternity ward in Mariupol," he said, "Even before it hits the news, you see the videos on the Telegram channels."
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