He floated the idea of restricting the use of Telegram in Ukraine and Russia, a suggestion that was met with fierce opposition from users. Shortly after, Durov backed off the idea. Recently, Durav wrote on his Telegram channel that users' right to privacy, in light of the war in Ukraine, is "sacred, now more than ever." Two days after Russia invaded Ukraine, an account on the Telegram messaging platform posing as President Volodymyr Zelenskiy urged his armed forces to surrender. 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. 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.
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