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. Apparently upbeat developments in Russia's discussions with Ukraine helped at least temporarily send investors back into risk assets. Russian President Vladimir Putin said during a meeting with his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko that there were "certain positive developments" occurring in the talks with Ukraine, according to a transcript of their meeting. Putin added that discussions were happening "almost on a daily basis." Soloviev also promoted the channel in a post he shared on his own Telegram, which has 580,000 followers. The post recommended his viewers subscribe to "War on Fakes" in a time of fake news. Two days after Russia invaded Ukraine, an account on the Telegram messaging platform posing as President Volodymyr Zelenskiy urged his armed forces to surrender. WhatsApp, a rival messaging platform, introduced some measures to counter disinformation when Covid-19 was first sweeping the world.
from ru
