The Security Service of Ukraine said in a tweet that it was able to effectively target Russian convoys near Kyiv because of messages sent to an official Telegram bot account called "STOP Russian War." Telegram was co-founded by Pavel and Nikolai Durov, the brothers who had previously created VKontakte. VK is Russiaβs equivalent of Facebook, a social network used for public and private messaging, audio and video sharing as well as online gaming. In January, SimpleWeb reported that VK was Russiaβs fourth most-visited website, after Yandex, YouTube and Googleβs Russian-language homepage. In 2016, Forbesβ Michael Solomon described Pavel Durov (pictured, below) as the βMark Zuckerberg of Russia.β "Your messages about the movement of the enemy through the official chatbot β¦ bring new trophies every day," the government agency tweeted. Such instructions could actually endanger people β citizens receive air strike warnings via smartphone alerts. The fake Zelenskiy account reached 20,000 followers on Telegram before it was shut down, a remedial action that experts say is all too rare.
from cn
