In February 2014, the Ukrainian people ousted pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych, prompting Russia to invade and annex the Crimean peninsula. By the start of April, Pavel Durov had given his notice, with TechCrunch saying at the time that the CEO had resisted pressure to suppress pages criticizing the Russian government. The Security Service of Ukraine said in a tweet that it was able to effectively target Russian convoys near Kyiv because of messages sent to an official Telegram bot account called "STOP Russian War." Oh no. There’s a certain degree of myth-making around what exactly went on, so take everything that follows lightly. Telegram was originally launched as a side project by the Durov brothers, with Nikolai handling the coding and Pavel as CEO, while both were at VK. The message was not authentic, with the real Zelenskiy soon denying the claim on his official Telegram channel, but the incident highlighted a major problem: disinformation quickly spreads unchecked on the encrypted app.
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