Pavel Durov

People were trying to pay for groceries in supermarkets and

Nothing would work because the Russian censor blocked too many IP addresses.

And some of the subnets were used to host other unrelated services.

Even some Russian social networks and media got affected.

Banks.

So they had to start being more selective in how they combat our anti-censorship tools.

The biggest resistance we got at the time was from Apple.

Apple didn't allow us to update Telegram in the App Store, saying for at least four weeks that we have to come to an agreement with Russia first.

We said it's not possible.

They said, we will allow you to push your update for Telegram worldwide, except for Russia.

We didn't want to do that.

I almost lost hope.

At some point, I said, you know, maybe this is the only way.

Maybe we should leave the Russian market.

Stop allowing users from Russia to download the app from the App Store, which would mean it's over.

We helped organize certain protests in defense of Telegram and privacy and freedom of speech in 2018 in Moscow.

There was hilarious people flying paper airplanes.

I saw that.

And at some point I decided I have to make a statement.

I have to say that Apple sided with the censor.