Terrorist attack in Ivano-Frankivsk: Law enforcement confirms that on March 11, Russians detonated their own agents.
The investigation established that the perpetrators were two local minors, aged 15 and 17, who were carrying explosives near the railway station.
The explosion killed the 17-year-old suspect, while his 15-year-old accomplice was hospitalized with severe injuries. Two bystanders were also wounded. The surviving suspect faces a potential life sentence.
The Russians remotely detonated one of the bombs carried by the teenagers, as well as a second device located in a rented apartment where they had been assembling explosives.
Additionally, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and the National Police are considering how to classify the actions of two 15-year-old girls who were in the same group as the suspects during the preparation of the attack.
Terrorist attack in Ivano-Frankivsk: Law enforcement confirms that on March 11, Russians detonated their own agents.
The investigation established that the perpetrators were two local minors, aged 15 and 17, who were carrying explosives near the railway station.
The explosion killed the 17-year-old suspect, while his 15-year-old accomplice was hospitalized with severe injuries. Two bystanders were also wounded. The surviving suspect faces a potential life sentence.
The Russians remotely detonated one of the bombs carried by the teenagers, as well as a second device located in a rented apartment where they had been assembling explosives.
Additionally, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and the National Police are considering how to classify the actions of two 15-year-old girls who were in the same group as the suspects during the preparation of the attack.
"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. One thing that Telegram now offers to all users is the ability to “disappear” messages or set remote deletion deadlines. That enables users to have much more control over how long people can access what you’re sending them. Given that Russian law enforcement officials are reportedly (via Insider) stopping people in the street and demanding to read their text messages, this could be vital to protect individuals from reprisals. Telegram was co-founded by Pavel and Nikolai Durov, the brothers who had previously created VKontakte. VK is Russia’s 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 Russia’s fourth most-visited website, after Yandex, YouTube and Google’s Russian-language homepage. In 2016, Forbes’ Michael Solomon described Pavel Durov (pictured, below) as the “Mark Zuckerberg of Russia.” Telegram has become more interventionist over time, and has steadily increased its efforts to shut down these accounts. But this has also meant that the company has also engaged with lawmakers more generally, although it maintains that it doesn’t do so willingly. For instance, in September 2021, Telegram reportedly blocked a chat bot in support of (Putin critic) Alexei Navalny during Russia’s most recent parliamentary elections. Pavel Durov was quoted at the time saying that the company was obliged to follow a “legitimate” law of the land. He added that as Apple and Google both follow the law, to violate it would give both platforms a reason to boot the messenger from its stores. 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.
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