In 2014, Pavel Durov fled the country after allies of the Kremlin took control of the social networking site most know just as VK. Russia's intelligence agency had asked Durov to turn over the data of anti-Kremlin protesters. Durov refused to do so. Ukrainian forces successfully attacked Russian vehicles in the capital city of Kyiv thanks to a public tip made through the encrypted messaging app Telegram, Ukraine's top law-enforcement agency said on Tuesday. In the United States, Telegram's lower public profile has helped it mostly avoid high level scrutiny from Congress, but it has not gone unnoticed. Either way, Durov says that he withdrew his resignation but that he was ousted from his company anyway. Subsequently, control of the company was reportedly handed to oligarchs Alisher Usmanov and Igor Sechin, both allegedly close associates of Russian leader Vladimir Putin. Lastly, the web previews of t.me links have been given a new look, adding chat backgrounds and design elements from the fully-features Telegram Web client.
from fr
