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. Overall, extreme levels of fear in the market seems to have morphed into something more resembling concern. For example, the Cboe Volatility Index fell from its 2022 peak of 36, which it hit Monday, to around 30 on Friday, a sign of easing tensions. Meanwhile, while the price of WTI crude oil slipped from Sunday’s multiyear high $130 of barrel to $109 a pop. Markets have been expecting heavy restrictions on Russian oil, some of which the U.S. has already imposed, and that would reduce the global supply and bring about even more burdensome inflation. Andrey, a Russian entrepreneur living in Brazil who, fearing retaliation, asked that NPR not use his last name, said Telegram has become one of the few places Russians can access independent news about the war. Just days after Russia invaded Ukraine, Durov wrote that Telegram was "increasingly becoming a source of unverified information," and he worried about the app being used to "incite ethnic hatred." 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.
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