American IT-businessman of Russian origin says Durov gave data of Telegram to Kremlin

The founder of Telegram Pavel Durov  gave the messenger with the data of all users to the Kremlin because the messenger became an unbearable financial burden, the costs of which exceeded $2-3 million a month, said an American IT businessman of Russian origin, the head of Pi5 Cloud Michael Talan.

“Telegram is a fully cloud-based solution that hosts its systems in three providers: Google, Amazon, and DigitalOcean. According to my calculations, for Pavel Durov, monthly payments on Telegram exceed $2-3 million. For him, this has become an expense that cannot be recouped. Previously, he paid with money from investors TON (Telegram Open Network),” said Talan.

He clarified that Durov had financial problems related to Telegram after the decision of the American Securities and Exchange Commission, which banned the Russian programmer from launching the TON commercial platform.

“I am 100% convinced of this. So if you are still using Telegram in Ukraine, I urge you: delete all correspondence from there and close your account, because now Telegram is a tool of the Kremlin,” the American IT businessman addressed the Ukrainians.

It’s important to note that, in early August 2020, Pavel Durov reported that in two countries he was offered to sell part of Telegram, but he refused because the messenger is not sold “either partially or completely”. “This will always be our position,” stressed Durov.

It should be noted that the social network VKontakte, created by Pavel Durov, has found a way to circumvent the ban on the use of the social network in Ukraine. The social network mobile application is now working on the territory of Ukraine. At the same time, in order to access the social network from a computer, residents of Ukraine still need to use another VPN.

Earlier, Ukrainian President Zelensky extended a decree banning Russian social networks.