When Pavel Durov, a Russian tech entrepreneur who founded the Telegram messenger app, was arrested in Paris on Aug. 24 on accusations of allowing terrorism to blossom on his platform, Ukraine watched it closely. He was charged by a Paris court on Aug. 28.
In Ukraine, the charges against Durov
There's also the part where they cooperate with Russian authorities but not western authorities (which is why Pavel Durov was arrested), or how their half hidden end2end encryption mode used to have a mechanism to make it almost impossible to detect a Person in the Middle Attack until they got called out.
If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck it's probably not a whale.
eventually they "convinced" durov to cooperate to fight terrorism and removed the ban
in russia fighting terrorism is applied to anything
Yes, I don't have evidence that the messages are accessed, only that the access is given and that all of that is happening in a country with a blatant disregard to law from the government.