In February 2014, the Ukrainian people ousted pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych, prompting Russia to invade and annex the Crimean peninsula. By the start of April, Pavel Durov had given his notice, with TechCrunch saying at the time that the CEO had resisted pressure to suppress pages criticizing the Russian government. Founder Pavel Durov says tech is meant to set you free One thing that Telegram now offers to all users is the ability to “disappear” messages or set remote deletion deadlines. That enables users to have much more control over how long people can access what you’re sending them. Given that Russian law enforcement officials are reportedly (via Insider) stopping people in the street and demanding to read their text messages, this could be vital to protect individuals from reprisals. "The result is on this photo: fiery 'greetings' to the invaders," the Security Service of Ukraine wrote alongside a photo showing several military vehicles among plumes of black smoke. "And that set off kind of a battle royale for control of the platform that Durov eventually lost," said Nathalie Maréchal of the Washington advocacy group Ranking Digital Rights.
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