The fake Zelenskiy account reached 20,000 followers on Telegram before it was shut down, a remedial action that experts say is all too rare. Artem Kliuchnikov and his family fled Ukraine just days before the Russian invasion. The gold standard of encryption, known as end-to-end encryption, where only the sender and person who receives the message are able to see it, is available on Telegram only when the Secret Chat function is enabled. Voice and video calls are also completely encrypted. "For Telegram, accountability has always been a problem, which is why it was so popular even before the full-scale war with far-right extremists and terrorists from all over the world," she told AFP from her safe house outside the Ukrainian capital. Such instructions could actually endanger people — citizens receive air strike warnings via smartphone alerts.
from ru