After fleeing Russia, the brothers founded Telegram as a way to communicate outside the Kremlin's orbit. They now run it from Dubai, and Pavel Durov says it has more than 500 million monthly active users. Stocks dropped on Friday afternoon, as gains made earlier in the day on hopes for diplomatic progress between Russia and Ukraine turned to losses. Technology stocks were hit particularly hard by higher bond yields. Crude oil prices edged higher after tumbling on Thursday, when U.S. West Texas intermediate slid back below $110 per barrel after topping as much as $130 a barrel in recent sessions. Still, gas prices at the pump rose to fresh highs. This provided opportunity to their linked entities to offload their shares at higher prices and make significant profits at the cost of unsuspecting retail investors. "There are several million Russians who can lift their head up from propaganda and try to look for other sources, and I'd say that most look for it on Telegram," he said.
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