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. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has been a driving force in markets for the past few weeks. The original Telegram channel has expanded into a web of accounts for different locations, including specific pages made for individual Russian cities. There's also an English-language website, which states it is owned by the people who run the Telegram channels. At this point, however, Durov had already been working on Telegram with his brother, and further planned a mobile-first social network with an explicit focus on anti-censorship. Later in April, he told TechCrunch that he had left Russia and had “no plans to go back,” saying that the nation was currently “incompatible with internet business at the moment.” He added later that he was looking for a country that matched his libertarian ideals to base his next startup. In 2018, Russia banned Telegram although it reversed the prohibition two years later.
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