It is unclear who runs the account, although Russia's official Ministry of Foreign Affairs Twitter account promoted the Telegram channel on Saturday and claimed it was operated by "a group of experts & journalists." Individual messages can be fully encrypted. But the user has to turn on that function. It's not automatic, as it is on Signal and WhatsApp. Artem Kliuchnikov and his family fled Ukraine just days before the Russian invasion. "And that set off kind of a battle royale for control of the platform that Durov eventually lost," said Nathalie Maréchal of the Washington advocacy group Ranking Digital Rights. There was another possible development: Reuters also reported that Ukraine said that Belarus could soon join the invasion of Ukraine. However, the AFP, citing a Pentagon official, said the U.S. hasn’t yet seen evidence that Belarusian troops are in Ukraine.
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