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. In 2018, Russia banned Telegram although it reversed the prohibition two years later. Pavel Durov, Telegram's CEO, is known as "the Russian Mark Zuckerberg," for co-founding VKontakte, which is Russian for "in touch," a Facebook imitator that became the country's most popular social networking site. In the past, it was noticed that through bulk SMSes, investors were induced to invest in or purchase the stocks of certain listed companies. Now safely in France with his spouse and three of his children, Kliuchnikov scrolls through Telegram to learn about the devastation happening in his home country.
from sg