Markets continued to grapple with the economic and corporate earnings implications relating to the Russia-Ukraine conflict. “We have a ton of uncertainty right now,” said Stephanie Link, chief investment strategist and portfolio manager at Hightower Advisors. “We’re dealing with a war, we’re dealing with inflation. We don’t know what it means to earnings.” 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. Telegram, which does little policing of its content, has also became a hub for Russian propaganda and misinformation. Many pro-Kremlin channels have become popular, alongside accounts of journalists and other independent observers. Messages are not fully encrypted by default. That means the company could, in theory, access the content of the messages, or be forced to hand over the data at the request of a government. 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.
from kr