Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The Supreme Court cannot be allowed to become the ultimate, unaccountable arbiter of everything.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.

Tide comes in. Tide goes out. You can’t explain that.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Spilling the end game before they can coat it in frankl luntz-approved dogwhistles.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

Chutkan laughs. Lauro sits back down.

How any woman could possibly vote for this smug smarmy piece of misogynistic crap is beyond understanding.

This fight is for everything.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires Republicans to act in good faith.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

After dobbs, women are no longer free.

I’m just a talker, trying to find a channel!

Shut up, hissy kitty!

SCOTUS: It’s not “bribery” unless it comes from the Bribery region of France. Otherwise, it’s merely “sparkling malfeasance”.

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

This must be what justice looks like, not vengeful, just peaceful exuberance.

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

The Supreme Court is corrupt. Democrats must win in November and force court reform.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / War for Ukraine Day 586: The Starlink Snowflake Continues to Be the Poster Boy for Reflexive Control

War for Ukraine Day 586: The Starlink Snowflake Continues to Be the Poster Boy for Reflexive Control

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We’ve got a lot of social media related stuff to go over tonight, but we’ll start with the Starlink Snowflake.

Ruslan Stefanchuk is the Chair of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

Whatever the Verkhovna Rada’s social media team actually tweeted on this got deleted:

If anyone knows of a screengrab, email it to me.

Since we can’t embed Bluesky posts, here’s a screengrab:

A screengrab of a Bluesky post by Marisa Kabas stating she got a lot of replies in German to her reportin on Musk embracing the AfD.

And here’s the link to her piece on Musk embracing the AfD, which I also linked to the other night.

Here is President Zelenskyy’s address from earlier today. Video below, English transcript after the jump.

It is only here in Ukraine that international law can prevail, and it will – address by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy

2 October 2023 – 22:29

I wish you health, fellow Ukrainians!

Today is a European and EU day in Ukraine.

It’s a very symbolic day: you can feel what it will look like, what it will sound like, what issues will be resolved and how they will be resolved when Ukraine fully joins the European Union.

Today, the EU Foreign Affairs Council held an offsite meeting in Kyiv.

All the foreign ministers of the member states, representatives of the European Commission and High Commissioner for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell were present. It was a very productive and substantive meeting. Truly in the interests of the whole of Europe.

This is the first time that this Council has met outside the European Union in such an offsite format. But it is formally outside. We all know that it is only a matter of time before Ukraine becomes a member of the EU. So the meeting has actually taken place in the EU already. Objectively, our country is a leader in protecting the very foundations on which European unity rests. The unity of modern Europe, which values human freedom and equality of nations, values international law.

Today we talked, in particular, about Ukraine’s full accession to the EU.

Our key integration goal is to hammer out a decision this year to start membership negotiations. And today I heard once again at the meetings and negotiations that this is absolutely possible. Ukraine will definitely fulfill its part of the work – the seven recommendations of the European Commission.

And it is very important that on the part of the European Union, all its member states, there is a similar readiness for a political decision on Ukraine, on beginning negotiations.

Today I had the opportunity to talk to all the top EU diplomats at the bilateral level, at the level of the entire community. We had a good discussion on many issues.

The key, of course, is our defense in this war, which is Russia’s aggression not only against Ukraine as a state, but also against Ukraine as a symbol of how free and democratic Europe can be.

I thank our partners for their support – military, economic and sanctions-related. Today we paid special attention to the issue of sanctions. To Russia’s attempts to circumvent sanctions. I believe that every attempt by Russia to break the sanctions regimes and international law requires a strong response from the world.

Any criminals – and especially criminals like those in Moscow – understand only the language of force and the inevitability of punishment.

I had good bilateral meetings with Mr. Borrell and with the Deputy Prime Minister – Minister of Foreign Affairs of Italy, Mr. Tajani. Our defense, our cooperation. We discussed a lot of issues.

I am grateful to Mr. Borrell for his sincere and kind faith in Ukraine and for his unwavering support.

I would also like to thank the whole of Italy, personally Mrs. Giorgia Meloni, and the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs for especially sensitive assistance, in particular in the reconstruction of Odesa: an agreement was signed with Italy to restore Spaso-Preobrazhensky Cathedral in Odesa, which was destroyed by a Russian missile. Regardless of how much Russia destroys history and culture, Europe is capable of restoring everything. And this is the strength of Europe, our Europe – free and solidary.

I would like to thank Denmark for its decision to open a branch of its Embassy in Mykolaiv. This is an exemplary case of patronage over the reconstruction of the region and an absolutely effective way to implement our agreements with Prime Minister Frederiksen. Thank you!

In general, today we had quite a substantive discussion on the operation of our ports and security in the Black Sea. On grain exports and food stability in the world.

We also discussed bolstering air defense. I am grateful to our partners for their understanding.

I also met with the Minister of Defense of Estonia. I am grateful for the support already provided. And it is a tangible support. 16 defense packages from Estonia. Today we discussed our further cooperation.

Plus two phone calls.

President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen. We talked about political cooperation. About Solidarity Lanes in Europe and the Ukrainian grain exports, about support for our farmers. It is very important that everyone in Europe adheres to European norms and does not violate the agreements. This is a clear principle of Ukraine, and it is important that the same principle underlies the decisions of all European policy actors.

I also spoke with President of the Government of Spain Pedro Sánchez. I thanked him for the principled defense and political support. Ukraine hopes for an effective Spanish Presidency of the Council of the EU. We also discussed the international events that we are preparing for together with Spain.

Another important result today is that our Peace Formula is gaining more and more support. Thank you for that, too.

And some more words of gratitude. Our warriors.

The 58th separate motorized infantry brigade named after Hetman Vyhovskyi, our glorious “Seventy-ninth” of the Air Assault Forces and the 128th separate brigade of the Territorial Defense Forces – thank you, warriors, for your extremely steadfast and effective defense in the areas of Urozhaine, Maryinka, and Staromaiorske. You are Ukraine’s true strength. Well done!

Glory to everyone who fights for our country and people! Thank you to everyone who helps!

All the support for Ukraine, every step to help us will surely be repaid with global security to those who support us. When Russian aggression is defeated on our soil, the very idea of aggression will be crushed. It is only now that international law can prevail – only here, only in Ukraine.

And it will prevail. We will be victorious!

Glory to Ukraine!

 

The cost:

Bizhan Sharopov is one of 31 service members who have been posthumously awarded the title “Hero of Ukraine” by President @ZelenskyyUa.
He was a scientist and a warrior.
Bizhan founded the “Ukrainian Genetic Technologies” company. In 2019, he received his PhD and began working at the National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Physiology, where he examined Alzheimer’s disease.
He participated in the Revolution of Dignity before becoming a volunteer in the early days of Russian aggression. He served in the “Aidar” battalion from 2014 to 2015.
When the full-scale war broke out, Bizhan joined the @TDF_UA.
He died on April 13, 2022, near the village of Borove in the Kharkiv region, while covering the evacuation of his unit from an encirclement. He saved 50 people at the cost of his life.

OpenDemocracy has a piece on Rustem Umerov, Ukraine’s new Minister of Defense:

hen offered the job of Ukraine’s defence minister by Volodymyr Zelenskyi, Rustem Umerov told the president he would first need to consult his people.

By people he meant the Mejilis, the representative body of Crimean Tatars, who are now in exile after the Russian occupation of the peninsula.

If he accepted the job, Umerov would occupy the highest position held by a Crimean Tatar in 240 years.

“Zelenskyi showed tact and said: ‘Okay, consult’,” says Mustafa Dzhemilev, a Crimean Tatar leader, who is sitting in an apartment in a modern housing complex in Kyiv. It was here that Umerov, an experienced politician, public servant and businessman, came for advice.Dzhemilev told Umerov he had his trust, but added: “If you discredit yourself in any way, you discredit not only yourself, but also our entire people.” He took the job.

Still, there’s reason to be proud, emphasises Tamila Tasheva, the presidential representative in Crimea. The fact that a Crimean Tatar has been appointed defence minister – someone who is ethnically and spiritually connected to Crimea – is a signal for Ukrainian society, the residents of Crimea, and international politicians who believe that Ukraine should make territorial concessions in order to achieve peace, Tasheva explains.

That signal is simple: Ukraine will fight for Crimea until it is liberated from Russian occupation. “There will be no concessions on this issue,” says Tasheva.

Much, much more at the link!

Touch not the (Polish) cat, but a glove!

While others make declarations regarding the future, we act in consultation with the Ukrainian side. The first Leopard tanks expressly renovated in Bumar-Łabędy were received by the Ukrainian side 🇺🇦 . Work on other tanks is in progress.

Bucha:

Mariinsky:

Kherson:

Kharkiv:

 

Engels air base, Saratove Oblast, Russia:

Speaking of Russians, or now former Russians who should definitely avoid tea, windows, door knobs, the tips of umbrellas, bathroom fixtures like sinks and tubs – who should just never leave their safe houses – here’s some news:

Russian officer escaped to the Ukrainian side with 11 of his fellow servicemen, GUR reports.

Russian lieutenant Daniil Alfyorov “actively cooperated with the Ukrainian GUR and Defence forces since June 2023”. He convinced 11 of his comrades to surrender into Ukrainian captivity from the Russian army, where their lives were under great danger of torture and being sent into meat assaults.

“When there was a threat to Alfiorov’s life, Ukraine carried out a special operation for his controlled withdrawal to Ukrainian territory,” said Andriy Yusov, a representative of the State Department of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, during a press conference.

And Russians who like to abuse the meaning of words:

Obligatory:

And for those who like to watch Russian military equipment go boom:

And for those wondering what it looks like at the launch side:

Ukrainska Pravda has taken a deep dive into who is funding Telegram.

Pavel Durov, Russian entrepreneur and founder of Telegram, congratulated everyone on Telegram’s latest birthday on 14 August 2023. He said the messenger app has gained over 800 million active users over the past ten years, solely through word of mouth.

The evolution of Telegram has two parts. The first is the public story of confronting the Russian authorities and positioning the messenger as a safe space for communication. The second is financial, which Durov is not so eager to publicise.

This makes sense, as Telegram still cannot rely on its own resources. At various times, Durov’s company has sought financial resources for development on the side.

“Telegram is on track to reach billions of users and to require appropriate funding. When a tech project reaches this scale, typically there are two options – start earning money to cover the costs, or sell the company,” Durov said in late 2020.

The entrepreneur has not sold the company in three years, and the messenger’s business model does not seem to be self-sufficient. Therefore, Durov has repeatedly approached investors for help, including those close to the Kremlin’s top brass.

Telegram’s image and reputation have always been built around safety and security. Durov’s notorious resignation from the position of CEO of the Vkontakte social network, which he had created and developed, in 2013 and disputes with the Russian Federal Service for Supervision of Communications (Roskomnadzor), made Telegram look like an alternative and, therefore, “reliable” tool for communication. This “reliability” refers not only to the claims of the messenger’s security, but also to the background of its financing.

Telegram’s financial journey began in 2017. Before that, Durov supported the messenger with the funds he received after leaving Vkontakte – about US$400 million.

“For most of Telegram’s history, I paid for the expenses of the company from my personal savings. However, with its current growth Telegram is on track to reach billions of users and to require appropriate funding,” Durov said in December 2020.

Apparently, realising the need to attract funds, three years before announcing it brothers Pavel and Nikolai Durov decided to create a blockchain platform called Telegram Open Network (TON) featuring their own cryptocurrency, Gram.

They chose the right time to launch their cryptocurrency. Telegram had over 180 million users in 2017, and integrating Gram into the messenger app would make it the most extensive blockchain system in terms of user numbers.

“The idea was to launch their own cryptocurrency, incorporate it into the messenger app, and announce themselves as the largest system by number of users in an attempt to displace Ethereum,” explained Anton Rosenberg, former Director of Special Projects at Telegram.

Durov generated a buzz around TON, and Telegram secured US$1.7 billion for the project in early 2018, having previously sold 2.9 billion Gram tokens. Durov saw this as a victory, as at the time, his own funding for the messenger app had run out, and the project itself remained unprofitable.

However, the TON team delayed the release, scheduling the launch of the blockchain system for 31 October 2019. Two weeks before that date, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a lawsuit against Telegram Group Inc. and TON Issuer Inc. in the Southern District of New York, seeking a temporary ban on the sale of tokens.

The SEC stated that Gram was a security in financial terms, so the issuer had to provide data on its financial position, management, business lines and possible risks. Telegram argued the opposite in court, but without success. The company was ordered to return US$1.2 billion to investors and pay US$18.5 million in fines.

Telegram’s collapse in the cryptocurrency arena exacerbated the problem of financing, so the messenger app used a traditional method of attracting funds in the spring of 2021, issuing bonds (pre-convertible IPO bonds) to the tune of US$1.75 billion.

Telegram attracted all their investors privately, so it is impossible to obtain a complete list of them. However, the names of some people and organisations that were listed as investors in the messenger app have appeared in the media more than once.

Among TON’s investors were Russians David Yakobashvili, who invested US$10 million, and oligarch Roman Abramovich. The former is under Ukrainian sanctions, while Abramovich is on the sanctions lists of the European Union, the United States, Switzerland, Canada, Ukraine and other countries. They are both believed to have close ties to the Kremlin.

The SEC found that one of TON’s largest investors (US$65.3 million) was Space Investments, a firm associated with Russian Sergei Azatyan’s InVenture Partners company.

Russian Forbes noted that the founder of Bank 131, Dmitry Yeremeev, also invested in Telegram. The National Agency on Corruption Prevention stated that Yeremeev, through his bank, financially or in other ways supports actions that undermine or threaten the territorial integrity of Ukraine by the Russian Federation.

Moreover, the SEC claimed that there was no TON ecosystem and that it does not exist. This also applies to goods that could be purchased with Gram. TON depends on investors’ money, and they can make money by reselling the cryptocurrency.

It is impossible to find information about the investors in the case of bonds. All that was stated was that after losing the court case to the SEC, Durov was no longer looking for investors among US citizens. Moreover, the media reported conflicting information about which region Telegram attracted the most investors from.

In one instance, Russia and other European countries are mentioned, in another – Asia. However, there are two investment funds to which Telegram sold its bonds that are always mentioned: Mubadala and Abu Dhabi Catalyst Partners. Both funds originate from the UAE, and they supposedly purchased US$150 million worth of the messenger’s bonds.

The Emirati state-owned holding company Mubadala has been working closely with Russia. For example, in 2013, Mubadala Investment created a US$2 billion fund with the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) to invest in long-term projects in various sectors of the Russian economy.

Mubadala has also invested in Russia’s Pulkovo airport, projects of SIBUR (petrochemical holding), En+ and Gazprom Neft. The fund’s total portfolio in Russia is estimated at US$3 billion. En+ is a holding company founded by Oleg Deripaska. Mubadala acquired shares in En+ from his ex-wife.

After the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Mubadala announced that it was suspending its investments in Russia.

Abu Dhabi Catalyst Partners is a fund set up by Mubadala and the American investment company Falcon Edge Capital. The latter is co-founded by Rick Gerson.

This name was mentioned more than once by US Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who was investigating the case of possible Russian financing of Donald Trump’s election campaign. Mueller claimed that Gerson was an intermediary between the Trump team, Russian officials and the UAE.

I’ll have more on this tomorrow night.

If you’re wondering what Mueller found regarding Gerson, here you go:

A close friend of Jared Kushner has come under scrutiny by Special Counsel Robert Mueller for his proximity to some key meetings between Trump associates and foreign officials, according to five people familiar with the matter.

Richard Gerson, a hedge-fund manager in New York, was in the Seychelles in January 2017, less than two weeks before President Donald Trump’s inauguration and around the time Trump associate Erik Prince secretly met with Russian and United Arab Emirates officials, including Crown Prince Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan of Abu Dhabi, four of the people said.

While in the remote Indian Ocean island nation, Gerson met with Prince Mohammed — also known by his initials as MBZ — and communicated with a Lebanese-American businessman with close ties to the UAE, George Nader, who had organized the Erik Prince meeting, according to text messages Gerson sent at the time and a person familiar with the meeting.

Gerson had met Nader just weeks earlier when Trump officials, including Kushner, gathered for a secret meeting with MBZ at a Four Seasons hotel in New York, four people familiar with the meeting said. Trump’s incoming national security adviser Michael Flynn and chief political adviser Steve Bannon, as well as the UAE’s ambassador to the U.S., Yousef Otaiba, also attended the meeting.

Gerson’s presence in the Seychelles and at the Four Seasons meeting has not been previously reported.

Mueller’s interest in Gerson is another sign that he is examining connections between the UAE and Trump associates. Counterintelligence investigators have been scrutinizing UAE influence in the Trump campaign since before Mueller was appointed as special counsel, and the probe has continued in coordination with Mueller’s team, according to two people briefed on the investigation.

While it is still unclear if Gerson was at the same Seychelles’ meeting that Erik Prince had with Emirati officials and Russian assets, according to Mueller’s investigation, Gerson did meet with MBZ. MBZ has a pair of particularly effective catspaws who were at the Seychelles’ meeting with Prince. The only open source news reporting on their attendance is from The Daily Mail:

One of the Arab world’s top spies and a shadowy conduit to Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin were present at a meeting in the Seychelles being probed by Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, DailyMail.com can disclose.

The meeting between Erik Prince, the Trump donor and billionaire Blackwater founder whose sister is education secretary Betsy DeVos, and Kirill Dmitriev, a Russian banker close to the Kremlin, was convened by the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, Mohamed bin Zayed, who is the de factor joint ruler of the United Arab Emirates.

But DailyMail.com can disclose that also present were bin Zayed’s spy chief and a Palestinian seen as the crown prince’s personal conduit to Putin’s Kremlin.

The two men – Hamad al Mazroie, the de facto head of the UAE intelligence service, and Mohammed Dahlan, a bin Zayed adviser who is fluent in Russian – were never named by Prince when he testified to the House intelligence committee about the meeting.

It emerged last month that George Nader, a Lebanese-American businessman and Middle East expert with ties to the Trump administration was present.

Dahlan went into the wind shortly after the 2014 US led Israeli-Palestinian peace process fell apart. He then emerged as a trusted agent for MBZ in the Emirates. MBZ still exerts control over Prince’s mercenary efforts even as Prince’s Frontier Services LTD is now owned by a shell corporation set up to mask that the PRC is the ultimate beneficial owner (UBO). Circling back, Dahlan is an exceedingly good security professional. That he emerged as part of what was going on in 2016 is itself an additional red flag. That he’s a largely unseen and unheard from catspaw of MBZ is even worse.

If Durov’s story is catnip to anti-Putin dissidents inside Russia and anti-Putin activists outside of it. But given who is funding his efforts, we have to consider if that story is too good to be true. That, in fact, Durov was set up as controlled opposition. Vector Media’s reporting, which is the first part of the deep dive into Durov, raises some of those concerns: (machine translation into English)

“No connections with Russia” and “Telegram has no equipment, employees or companies in Russia”, – this is how the messenger itself commented on one of the points of the column of Petcube co-founder Yaroslav Azhnyuk. In it, the entrepreneur laid out arguments why the widespread use of the messenger by Ukrainians, including high-ranking officials, should cause concern. In particular, because of the messenger’s connections with the authorities of the Russian Federation.

Such a response from Telegram should reassure its users in Ukraine. However, if you delve into the topic, it is quite easy to find numerous connections of Telegram with the Russian Federation – both in the past and now: from VKontakte developers to investors. Let’s consider them in this material. Spoiler: some of the popular stickers were created in Russia.

Pavlo Durov launched Telegram in 2013. You can read about the story that led to the idea of ​​creating your own messenger at the link . In short, Durov claims that in December 2011, as the CEO of VKontakte, he refused to remove opposition groups at the request of the FSB. After that, masked people came to him, to whom he did not open the door. Next, Durov decided to contact his brother Mykola (ex-STO “VKontakte” and active in Telegram), but realized that there was no safe way to do this. However, this beautiful story gives too little information about how the messenger was actually created.

Rumors about a potential new Durov project began to appear in 2012. In particular, Mykola Kononov wrote rather vaguely about this in the businessman’s biography “The Code of Durov”.

2018, former deputy CTO of VKontakte and director of special areas
Telegram Anton Rosenberg gave an interview to the Russian GQ, where he touched on the story of the creation of the messenger. Before I dwell on it, I will note that at that time Rosenberg had a conflict and legal battles with the Durov brothers. Therefore, you should definitely not rely on the information provided. However, at least part of what he said about the history of Telegram is confirmed by other sources.

So, according to Rosenberg, the situation with opposition groups and special forces was managed to be resolved before the New Year. He believes that a letter to Vladyslav Surkov (at that time the deputy head of the government of the Russian Federation, but better known to us as the author of the concept of “Russian Peace” and the ideologist of the “Novorossiya” project) could have influenced him.

“In it, he tried to explain that VKontakte does not engage in politics, abides by Russian laws and is ready to cooperate, and attempts to block protest groups will lead to the fact that all activity will move to Facebook, which is not controlled by the authorities,” says Rosenberg.

We could not find the full text of the letter itself. However, certain points from it are quoted in the material of the Russian “Novaya Gazeta”. According to the publication, in particular, it stated that VKontakte has been cooperating with the FSB and Department K of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for several years, “proactively releasing information about thousands of users of our network in the form of IP addresses, mobile phone numbers and other information , necessary for their identification”.

VKontakte and Telegram denied the existence of this letter. The press secretary of the social network, Vladyslav Tsyplukhin, noted that Durov had only one meeting with Surkov, at which they apparently talked about the Russian innovation center Skolkovo. Tsyplukhin himself allegedly met with Surkov twice. According to Tsyplukhin, he was interested in his view of the Internet, the media situation in it, asked about plans to move to the West and “partially about the elections.”

We tried to ask Andrii Kolesnikov, the author of the Novaya Gazeta article, about this. He refused to comment and responded quite aggressively. However, he noted that everything published by Novaya Gazeta is true.

Development began in April 2012. Rosenberg claims that Durov told VKontakte developers to create a more convenient and faster messenger than WhatsApp.

On further conflict with shareholders and legal battles with Putin-related fund UCP  , who tried to take the messenger from Durov, can be read here. According to the official version, in 2014, Durov sold his stake in VKontakte and did not hold positions in the company. In April of the same year, he claimed that he had left the Russian Federation and did not plan to return.

Around the same time, Durov began to build a reputation as a dissident who left Russia for political reasons. In particular, because the FSB refused to hand over the personal information of the organizers of the Euromaidan groups. It seemed that the entrepreneur broke ties with the Russian Federation and took the Telegram team out of there. But everything is not so simple.

From 2012 to 2019, the Russian company TzOV “Telegraf” existed. Its legal address , at least at the end of 2013, is the Singer Building, 6th floor, Nevsky Prospekt, 28, St. Petersburg. That is, she was in the same room with VKontakte. We are interested in this company because it is suspected that the first Telegram development office was located there. Why? About everything in order.

According to Andrii Lopatin, the former general director of Telegraf LLC  and Rosenberg , the Telegram team continued to work in the Singer House even after Durov’s official departure.

Rosenberg claims that Mykola and Pavlo Durov remained in the Russian Federation. Lopatin also said that at the time of his dismissal (autumn 2014), Pavlo Durov was in this office every day. Other employees of VKontakte and Telegram at the time also confirmed to Wired that Durov often visited the Singer House. Also, according to the sources of the Russian publication “Sekret Firmy”, the businessman visited there in 2016 as well. By the way, in the same material it is said that Mykola Durov then continued to live in St. Petersburg.

And what did Durov himself say about “Telegraph”? In 2017, he told Meduza that the last time the team gathered at the Singer House was in 2014. He also named “Telegraf” as the contractor company with which Telegram cooperated. She was allegedly outsourced to analyze Russian-language spam, which was done by the former team of VKontakte moderators.

At the same time, Meduza traced the connection between Telegram and “Telegraph” in the same text. Registered in Belize, the Telegraph company is a co-founder of the UK-based Telegram Messenger LLP (which uploaded the Telegram messenger to app stores) and Telegraph LLC. Another interesting point is the data from the lawsuit  Durov himself at UCP in 2014. It says that the entrepreneur was involved in the creation and financing of Telegraf LLC.

From all of the above, we can conclude that at least in the first years of operation, Telegram had a subsidiary in Russia. Moreover, former VKontakte developers worked in it. Can’t believe they were just sorting through spam. Durov himself, it seems, did not leave Russia at all, despite his statement.

Another important question: who is currently in the Telegram team? Only four figures are publicly known – Durov himself, his brother Mykola, Ilya Perekopskyi and Mykhailo Ravdonikas. Let’s focus on the last two.

Both Perekopsky and Ravdonikas are Durov’s university friends who worked at VKontakte and then moved to Telegram. Ravdonikas is a less prominent figure. Until 2013, he was the marketing director of VKontakte. He currently holds the position of Telegram’s vice president of communications. But it is worth telling more about Perekopskyi.

Ilya Perekopskyi

In 2014, it looked like the relationship between Durov and Perekopsky had deteriorated. When Perekopsky left VKontakte, he became an adviser to the UCP and accused Pavel of the company’s “collapse” . He also said that Durov took “15 of the best Olympiad programmers” with him in Telegram.

“And Durov himself, under the pressure of shareholders, cowardly betrays his friends, naively believing that he will be able to transfer to me the responsibility for the billion-dollar businesses of his brothers, the brother of his common-law wife and his other relatives,” Perekopsky noted on VC.RU (the text was removed at the request the author).

Durov reacted to this discreetly. He said that it is not easy for Perekopsky. And he also  blamed UCP: “Apparently, UCP caught [Ilya and his brother Igor] Perekopsky in opaque schemes and, after threatening the courts, decided to use them in their dirty game for control of the company. Of course, by promising mountains of gold and the position of CEO. A logical move for bandits who came from oil to IT.”

In addition to UCP consultations, Perekopskyi also filed a lawsuit against VKontakte, demanding that he be paid proper compensation upon dismissal. Durov, in turn, sued UCP and Perekopsky over an attempt to take away Telegram from him. After the parties settled the situation, the conflict seems to have subsided.

Perekopsky’s next project was Blackmoon Financial Group, which he launched together with Oleg Seydak in 2014. The company created an online service for non-bank lending in the USA. In 2016, the company raised $2.5 million from Flint Capital Global, Target Global and A&NN Group funds. The founder of A&NN Group is the sanctioned Russian oligarch Oleksandr Mamut.

By 2018, Durov’s relationship with Perekopsky seems to have improved again, and Perekopsky became vice president of Telegram. He took up the development of the messenger business. The arrival of Perekopsky coincided with the successful ICO of the Telegram blockchain project — TON (Telegram Open Network). Messenger raised $1.7 billion from 171 investors. Their names were not disclosed. However, Russian media name Qiwi founder Sergey Solonin, Wimm-Bill-Dann co-founder David Yakobashvili and oligarch Roman Abramovich among them . The last two were sanctioned after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Perekopsky also had experience in the cryptocurrency market. Together with the same Seydak, in 2014, he created the Blackmoon Crypto crypto exchange. It later raised $10 million in a pre-ICO. In 2020, it turned out that Blackmoon Crypto was going to sell TON — Gram tokens. After the closure of Durov’s TON project, the same fate awaited Blackmoon Crypto Perekopsky.

But let’s return to Perekopsky in Telegram. In April 2018, the messenger was blocked in the Russian Federation. This did not prevent Perekopsky from visiting the Russian Federation at least twice in his position as vice president of Telegram – in June for the World Football Championship, and then in August – his native Vologda region.

Not that it is surprising when a citizen of the Russian Federation returns to his native country. However, at that time, the FSB demanded from Durov “universal keys” to decrypt Telegram correspondence, and the messenger itself was blocked. Despite this, the vice president of the messenger calmly moved around the Russian Federation, whose government is generally not famous for its patience with people who challenge the regime. It seems that Perekopsky’s visits were not unusual. In 2019, judging by photos and videos on Instagram, he spent time in the same Vologda region.

On June 18, 2020, Telegram was unblocked in the Russian Federation. Already on July 9, Perekopsky joined the panel discussion held by the Prime Minister of the Russian Federation, Mikhail Mishustin. In September of the same year, the vice president of Telegram shared a video of him riding a buggy with the governor of the Vologda region, Oleg Kuvshinnikov. By the way, the latter is currently under the sanctions of Ukraine , Great Britain , the USA , Canada , Australia and New Zealand due to the support of Russian armed aggression in Ukraine.

In the end, it doesn’t look like Perekopsky had any problems with the Russian authorities.

In a post on his Russian-language channel for February 24, it is not about the invasion, but about “today’s events.” Then Durov spoke about the possibility of partially or completely limiting the work of Telegram channels in the “involved countries for the duration of the conflict” in the event of an escalation of the “situation”. However, in the end he changed his mind. He then promised that user data would be safe. However, he called the war a “tragic conflict.”

Developers, designers, partners

Publicly, Telegram is in no hurry to reveal information about the team. In LinkedIn, a search mostly returns users who maintain channels in Telegram or something similar. Telegram’s own LinkedIn page claims that the company apparently has a “No LinkedIn” policy: “Accounts that claim to be former or current employees have never worked for Telegram.”

By the way, in one of the Telegram chats where the messenger is discussed, the information that the company has no employees in the Russian Federation was commented on: “it’s logical that there are no fucking “employees in Russia” because if you fucking write “You are not an employee of TG” in EVERY contract “.

We cannot directly confirm the above information at this time. However, in 2017, “Telegraph” sued Anton Rosenberg for 100 million rubles. The reason is the disclosure of a commercial secret. Rosenberg indicated Telegram.org (the official site of the messenger) as his place of work on Facebook, and also provided the court with information  notarized screenshots of work correspondence. Because of this, Telegram Messenger LLP allegedly terminated the contract with “Telegraph”. It turns out that Rosenberg was forbidden to say that he had anything to do with Telegram.

Be that as it may, we managed to find people associated with the messenger at various stages of existence. Yes, the TON blockchain website has information about the original project team that worked on it until it was closed. In addition to Pavel and Mykola Durovy himself, 11 people were included in this list. 10 of them were former VKontakte employees.

Another mention of the people who developed Telegram is the UCP lawsuit in 2014. In it, Durov was accused of paying for the work of Telegram developers with VKontakte funds. There was also a list of these people: Andriy Rogozov, Andriy Lopatin, Hryhoriy Klyushnikov, Oleksiy Levin, Arseniy Smirnov, Vitaly Valtman, Anton Maydel.

Some of them have already been mentioned in the text or are in the list of TON developers. Andriy Rogozov deserves special attention. First, he was one of the key top managers at VKontakte under Durov — he headed the development department. He then had a very successful career in the Mail.ru Group holding company (VK from October 2021). In particular, he was the CEO of VKontakte for almost four years, and then the vice president of social platforms of the holding. In 2022, it was reported that Rogozov left this position, but continued to work with VK as an adviser to the general director on social media management.

Secondly, Rogozov continues to cooperate with Telegram and Durov. He co-founded the TON Foundation  and became the founder and CEO of the blockchain startup The Open Platform . On September 13, Telegram and the TON Foundation presented the TON Space crypto wallet , which was integrated into the messenger. It was developed by The Open Platform.

And he remains an adviser to VK, at least until he officially announced his departure. 

Of course, these are far from all the people who work at Telegram or are connected to it. For example, Alyona Sofina seems to be among the latter. In her LinkedIn, she indicated that she has been working as an Animator under a contract at Telegram since 2019. And Sofina noted that she holds the position of Lead Designer of Artemiy Lebedev Studios . The company of the same Lebedev, who spreads anti-Ukrainian propaganda, came to the Ukrainian territories occupied by the Russian Federation, and his assets were recently confiscated in favor of our state. She is the author of some popular sticker packs  and emojis in Telegram. For example, this pack is available for premium users.

The situation is similar with illustrator/animator Olga Shibaeva, who identified herself as a freelancer for Telegram on LinkedIn. Judging by her Instagram, she also made a number of stickers for the messenger, and she still lives in the Russian Federation. That is, it pays taxes to the aggressor country.

In conclusion, it is obvious that Telegram’s statement about the absence of any ties with the Russian Federation is not true. Throughout its history, the messenger has in one way or another been associated with Russia, in particular, the origin of the team, TON investors and contractors. Why would a company lie in a public response to accusations of cooperation with the Kremlin? Everyone has to answer this question for themselves.

More at the link!

My read on this is that it is plausible that Durov was purposefully provided with a backstory as a dissident and that he, those working for him, and the Telegram app are controlled opposition. What I cannot say is how probable it is. Hopefully we will get further clarity as Vector and Ukrainska Pravda continue their investigations and publish their reporting.

If you were ever wondering where all the most secret departments of the Russian government are? Well if you were, Mikhail Khodorkosky’s Dossier Center is your huckleberry!

How to find out where the most secret departments of Russia are hidden in Moscow, where military units are deployed in Primorye or where additional border posts are established in the Bryansk region? It is enough to find on the website of the administration of any region of Russia a document with an uncompetitive name « List of consumers of electric energy ( power ), limiting the mode of consumption of electric energy of which can lead to economic, environmental, social consequences ». It is in the list of these special electricity consumers that the addresses of sensitive objects are listed in open text, for the disclosure of information about which up to seven years in prison are threatened.

Invisible FSO facilities in Moscow, the conspiratorial base of the FSIN external surveillance service in St. Petersburg, the ammunition depot in the Leningrad Region, the addresses of FSB points in Ingushetia, pretending to be « secret objects » — all these places in Russia are legally related to state secrets. And all of them can be found in the lists of special consumers of electricity.

Secret Moscow
On the website of the Moscow City Hall there is a 434-page document with a list of special consumers of electricity that cannot be disconnected from energy supply under any circumstances . The file description says more briefly: «Special group».

The document was signed by the head of the department of housing and communal services Vyacheslav Torsunov and the director of « Mosenergosbyta » Andrei Kovalev and approved by Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin.

The contents of most pages are not secret: these are medical facilities, Russian Railways and the subway, communications infrastructure, federal and city authorities, police and rescuers. Another thing is — sections, including objects of the military department and special services. They are amazing in frankness.

For example, for disclosing information about the deployment of military units, any citizen may be in a cell. Everything is simpler on the city hall’s website. The document systematized information about all military units, institutions and organizations of the Ministry of Defense deployed in Moscow, and indicates which addresses the specific units are located at. Most of these places are already known, but no one, except the Moscow City Hall, put the single — and the official — register in open access.

Much, much more at the link!

That’s enough for tonight.

Your daily Patron!

There is a new slide show at Patron’s official TikTok. Those don’t embed here, so click through if you want to see it.

Open thread!

Reader Interactions

38Comments

  1. 1.

    Villago Delenda Est

    I’ve said this before, and I’ll most likely say it again: Elno Moosk is a fuckin’ Nazi.

  2. 2.

    Alison Rose

    Honestly, “Fuck Elon Musk” ought to be a rotating tag.

    The Bucha memorial is very moving. Reminds me a bit of the Vietnam Veterans’ memorial. Understated but still with a real emotional heft.

    I hope there comes a day when, in addition to never hearing about TIFG again, we also never have to hear about Jared again.

    Thank you as always, Adam.

  3. 3.

    Villago Delenda Est

    I’ll let Omnes comment further on this, as he knows more about it than I do, but the fact that Ukraine can make counterbattery strikes as depicted above is impressive.

  7. 7.

    Shalimar

    Musk has succeeded in becoming Putin’s richest Oligarch.  He might want to stay away from windows.  Is he still building that all-glass house?  That seems really unwise.

  12. 12.

    Anonymous At Work

    @Jay: “…doomed to repeat it…”  Messing with veterans’ benefits and backpay is about the biggest inciting event for a revolution.  It caused a revolution in the US, tsarist Russia, etc.  Organized, used to violence, [usually] ruthless…yeah, you want disgruntled vets as enemies.

  17. 17.

    Carlo Graziani

    Speaking of Russians, or now former Russians who should definitely avoid tea, windows, door knobs, the tips of umbrellas, bathroom fixtures like sinks and tubs – who should just never leave their safe houses – here’s some news:

    You neglected to mention “underwear drawers.”

  18. 18.

    Carlo Graziani

    Thanks for the deep (…deep…deep…) dive on Telegram. That entity has alway seemed to me a weird hybrid of libertarian-utopian-tech-capitalist funding magnet and nearly inexplicable Russian state tolerance. In the end, it seems to be a classic of Russian conspiracism meets Silicon Valley Startup Venture Capital Investor culture. Nothing good could be expected from that stew.

    Well, maybe one thing: if the FSB really did weaken Telegram communications security for their own edification and entertainment, they almost certainly let the NSA in as well. And the traffic analysis alone is likely to make Telegram a productive source of intelligence for the US.

  20. 20.

    Bill Arnold

    The Starlink Snowflake Continues to Be the Poster Boy for Reflexive Control

    He really is. I’ve said on this site several times that Mr. Musk is gullible and easily manipulated. (There’s a story there.)
    Sadly, GOP operatives appear to joied the manipulate-E-Musk bandwagon, with a grotesque propaganda tour of the Southern USA border. Guy’s puppet strings have many competing actors tugging on them.

    Anyway, an emormous amount of thought-provoking material, tonight.
    FWIW, the typical ranking in the computer security community for messenger apps is (1) Signal (2) Whatsapp (3) Telegram. Telegram messages are not end-to-end encrypted by default, though there is the option, so a lot of them end up not end-to-end-encryped. Otherwise seems OK to vulnerability researchers.
    A fork of Signal run on one’s own servers might be best; don’t know of anyone who does that though.
    All three are vulnerable to compromise of at least one endpoint device involved in a chat, typically a phone.

  22. 22.

    Carlo Graziani

    @Bill Arnold: This is interesting. If a Telegram message is E2E encrypted by one user, does the other user have to agree for the encrypted channel to get established? Is E2E permanent, or message-by-message? And if the message is to a channel, rather than to an individual, can the individual protect his/her identity by E2E?

  23. 23.

    Gin & Tonic

    Haven’t seen mention of this here, but I think it’s significant:

    I am convening today the EU Foreign Ministers in Kyiv, for the first ever meeting of all 27 Member States outside the EU.

    Ukraine’s future lies within the EU. pic.twitter.com/1mz5gpB1qx
    — Josep Borrell Fontelles (@JosepBorrellF) October 2, 2023

  25. 25.

    Carlo Graziani

    @Gin & Tonic: I believe this was a case of comic use of incoherence.

    WhatsApp has some basic security covering the content of communications. But metadata such as location and phone usage patterns is not protected by default, because that would compromise the Meta business model. And backups are totally unprotected. So WA users get casual security (from jealous lovers who can’t afford to pay hackers, say), but people who must consider more serious threat models (e.g. journalists) cannot rely on that level of security.

  26. 26.

    Bill Arnold

    @Carlo Graziani:

    Is E2E permanent, or message-by-message?

    Message by message.
    I have not worked with Telegram – the Russian connections make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up – so have not ever looked much closer at the other questions. When end-to-end is on, the message contents are probably secure, though recordings might be broken by future advances in cryptanalysis (hardware (QC) or SW or both). Civilian cryptanalysis is much better relative to top state actors than it was 30-40 years ago, and telegram is open source, with reproducible builds. All these do have some issues with metadata and traffic analysis by actors with hooks into the internet infrastructure, or compromised servers. All three have had several years of scrutiny, with vulns found and fixed.

  29. 29.

    Bill Arnold

    @Carlo Graziani:

    And backups are totally unprotected.

    Oh interesting. Looks like WhatsApp added an option to encrypt backups with a user key a couple of years ago, though. Not a user; don’t use Meta’s products, at all.
    Signal doesn’t back up messages, which can be annoying. (You can encrypted back them up locally, and also transfer to a new phone using a QR code displayed by one and read by the other.)

  30. 30.

    Anonymous At Work

    @Carlo Graziani: I actually thought that Telegram was Russian-run Western propaganda service, like Intertass during the Cold War.
    (Which is frustrating when you flip it with Telegraph, which isn’t great but does cover some things in UK that I try to follow)

  31. 31.

    Will

    Has Ukraine information become more available on Blue Sky? I was curious if people like Chuck or Rob Lee cross post there yet? I mostly use Twitter for Ukraine and Fintwit. I know a handful of Fintwit has moved, but not most yet. However I feel that day is coming.

  32. 32.

    AlaskaReader

    Can anyone express in plain speak the jeapordy/risk should WhatsAp be utilized for comms between US users and Ukrainian users?

    Thanks in advance…

  33. 33.

    Chris Johnson

    Good to see bluesky showing up. I got on and my feed is mostly furries :)

    I have some invites, here’s one: bsky-social-q7mja-qx7vi

    I had to get on Telegram to communicate with folks running a furry con I attend. I would note that another normal Russian thing to do in addition to providing dissident cred and running somebody as controlled opposition, is to provide controlled opposition cred and undermine a dissident. That would assume it was possible to be a dissident with brass cojones capable of just bare-faced operating Telegram and making no significant concessions while running it as open source which apparently it is. And that would assume being publically dissident doesn’t automatically, efficiently, get you killed or jailed. It seems to me you have to have just as brass cojones if you want to be a full-on supporter of Russia’s government since it’s clearly the mob anyhow and look what it got the head Wagner guy… not sure there is safety in allying with these guys or that they have the power they pretended to have.

    I have no ground to stand on here as I use Zoom anyway: for all I know, everything my Apple devices can’t control is sent to all the bad actors in the whole wide world. That includes, say, Facebook.

    I don’t recommend going near Telegram unless you’re a furry, which apparently is a major demographic (I don’t know how many are compiling their own clients from source, but there’s an overlap with techies and open source types). I see bluesky as basically ‘same as twitter but hasn’t been bought by Musk’, and that weakness is also a strength: it’s the kind of thing that does expand outwards to become Twitter-sized, and might for a time function as ‘the good Twitter’. Hard to say.

  34. 34.

    Geminid

    The ship locator site vesselfinder.com reports that the ship Enieda is at anchor in the Marmara Sea* just west of Istanbul. This is one of the three ships featured in Dr. Silverman’s Sunday night post, that sailed from Ukrainian ports using the coastal route opened by the Ukrainian Navy. The Eneida is projected to deliver its cargo of Ukrainian wheat to the Spanish port of Malaga on October 10.

    Formerly the Bosphorus Prince, the 185 meters-long Eneida has been under “full technical management” by Staff Centre Shipmanagement since August 10, 2022, according to an announcement by that Odesa-based firm.

    *the ancient Greeks knew the Marmara Sea as Propontis. It’s been a much-traveled route for grain ships since at least 600 BCE..

  35. 35.

    Carlo Graziani

    @AlaskaReader: It rather depends on your threat model.

    If you are exchanging information of potential interest to nation-state-level hackers, and if the communication might endanger someone if it’s captured, or if even the fact that it occurred becomes known (think journalist talking to confidential sources) then WA is not a great option.

    For more casual, low-consequence security (privacy from prying eyes) it’s fine.

  37. 37.

    Carlo Graziani

    @AlaskaReader: On phones, Signal appears to be the industry standard for secure communication. If security is the top priority, that’s where one lands.

    Of course, the app itself is not secure if the phone is insecure, and there are too many avenues to compromise Android phones, and even iPhones, in common use by nation-state hackers. I don’t know (and perhaps should not know) your security requirements, but if they are very high, a computer running Linux, or OSX, regularly updated, running some kind of secure videoconferencing software, would be where I would land.

    Sorry for the post-thread-death response…

Comments are closed.