Use the CEO as lever to gain control over a Russian controlled medium used to deliver unfiltered information about a lot of ongoing conflicts right now. Can't have that when you're hell bent on war.
There are a large number of highly active Ukrainian channels on Telegram, all about as anti-Russian as you would expect. There are Ukrainian government ministers operating channels on Telegram. How does that occur on a "Russian controlled medium?"
I don't speak either Russian or Ukrainian. I know none of these channel operators. Yet I've been granted approval on a number of "private" Ukrainian channels. Certainly a Russian could as well. Why wouldn't Russia's state actors, given that they enjoy "control" of the medium, shut it all down?
Why would they? It's mostly just a couple of thousand people following those channels. Analyzing their meta data and behavior is worth much more than restricting reach of these channels or forcing them to go elsewhere.
Russian-controlled is an overstatment, but it's definitely Russian-influenced. There seems to have been some kind of balance - Durov allowed the Russians some limited control in exchange for being allowed to operate in Russia. The publicly visible manifestation of this deal was, for instance, the ban on "Путь домой" (Way home) channel where the wifes of mobilized men organized their movement. I'm not stating this necessarily happened as a result of some direct negotiations - maybe Durov just intuitively probed "the red lines", who knows.
Путь домой is an active channel. It has 53,690 subscribers. There is a "FAKE" label (first time I've seen that...) and an associated warning: "Warning: Many users report that this account impersonates a famous person or organisation[sic]." There are regular posts, the most recent being 31 minutes ago. Translating about 10 of them, I see a many parents complaining about the treatment of conscripts.
Yeah, "fake" means you can't find it in search, which was good enough to kill the momentum when it mattered. It's also not fake in any way, and the explanation they gave is laughable.
Also, there were previous instances of cooperation when Durov himself admitted it in his memetic "...or full cesation of Telegram operation in Russia" survey.
