"There is a significant risk of insider threat or hacking of Telegram systems that could expose all of these chats to the Russian government," said Eva Galperin with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which has called for Telegram to improve its privacy practices. For Oleksandra Tsekhanovska, head of the Hybrid Warfare Analytical Group at the Kyiv-based Ukraine Crisis Media Center, the effects are both near- and far-reaching. "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. In 2018, Russia banned Telegram although it reversed the prohibition two years later. Such instructions could actually endanger people — citizens receive air strike warnings via smartphone alerts.
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