Ukrainian forces successfully attacked Russian vehicles in the capital city of Kyiv thanks to a public tip made through the encrypted messaging app Telegram, Ukraine's top law-enforcement agency said on Tuesday. The channel appears to be part of the broader information war that has developed following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The Kremlin has paid Russian TikTok influencers to push propaganda, according to a Vice News investigation, while ProPublica found that fake Russian fact check videos had been viewed over a million times on Telegram. Since its launch in 2013, Telegram has grown from a simple messaging app to a broadcast network. Its user base isn’t as vast as WhatsApp’s, and its broadcast platform is a fraction the size of Twitter, but it’s nonetheless showing its use. While Telegram has been embroiled in controversy for much of its life, it has become a vital source of communication during the invasion of Ukraine. But, if all of this is new to you, let us explain, dear friends, what on Earth a Telegram is meant to be, and why you should, or should not, need to care. 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. "Your messages about the movement of the enemy through the official chatbot … bring new trophies every day," the government agency tweeted.
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