This was discussed at the press conference held at the Ukraine-Ukrinform Media Center.

“When I go to the east, I see that some military people use Telegram and geolocation is enabled, which can lead to the directing of weapons and explosions to a place where a person or a group of people with certain geographical locations are located. Yehor Aushev, an expert at NGO Cyber ​​War Research Institute, said in a discussion of these issues and stated that it should be disclosed to the army.

According to him, family members of a soldier should also not communicate with him via Telegram.

Moreover, the expert noted that when phones of the Russian military are seized, two main communication applications are always found: Telegram and VKontakte.

“This is also confirmed by their correspondence – there are many consolidated correspondence of the Russian military on the Internet, and they say that they were instructed to use only Telegram and Vkontakte for communication,” the representative of the NGO said.

He asked citizens to raise this issue and explain to their relatives and military personnel that there is no need to use this messenger.

“When foreign partners call me, they ask: ‘Why are they still using the Russian ambassador in Ukraine?’ “Let’s not use messenger, which has many questions, at least for security or business-related issues,” Aushev advised.

Valentin Kucheruk, co-founder of the Cyber ​​Warfare Research Institute, said that when installing Telegram on a mobile phone, the user is asked to access especially the contact book, microphone, photo gallery, etc. highlighted that access permissions are requested and the user accepts and grants these permissions.

“And in the license terms it says that the data is encrypted. But it is written that way. Nobody checked it, there was no external audit of this system, they could not pass it. This is also closed information. Nobody gave information that an independent company audited the code or anything else. Nowhere is there such a thing there is no evidence,” Kucheruk emphasized.

Answering the question of whether Telegram is a business or an instrument of the Russian Federation as a state and the Russian special services, Aushev noted that if it is a business, then it is very unprofitable.

“But there are a lot of things going on that we don’t know about, including inside the Russian Federation. But the fact that funds from leading Russian investment funds and large companies have been specifically attracted to Telegram leads us to believe that this messenger is actually supported at the federal level,” said the representative of the NGO.

As reported, Ivan Pavlenko, head of the Main Directorate of Radio-Electronic Warfare and Cyber ​​Security of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, advised Ukrainians not to use Telegram.