"Someone posing as a Ukrainian citizen just joins the chat and starts spreading misinformation, or gathers data, like the location of shelters," Tsekhanovska said, noting how false messages have urged Ukrainians to turn off their phones at a specific time of night, citing cybersafety. Friday’s performance was part of a larger shift. For the week, the Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq fell 2%, 2.9%, and 3.5%, respectively. In addition, Telegram's architecture limits the ability to slow the spread of false information: the lack of a central public feed, and the fact that comments are easily disabled in channels, reduce the space for public pushback. The news also helped traders look past another report showing decades-high inflation and shake off some of the volatility from recent sessions. The Bureau of Labor Statistics' February Consumer Price Index (CPI) this week showed another surge in prices even before Russia escalated its attacks in Ukraine. The headline CPI — soaring 7.9% over last year — underscored the sticky inflationary pressures reverberating across the U.S. economy, with everything from groceries to rents and airline fares getting more expensive for everyday consumers. 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.
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