Telegram has became the most successful social media app in Russia, Ukraine, Balkan countries either Hungary and Czechia.
There is a main reason why Russian and Ukrainian citizens use Telegram:
It is the app choice of the war
When Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022, Telegram was not just a messaging app, but a source of information. Both Russian and Ukrainian governments created channels.
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy published his statements to the official Telegram channel named “Ukraine Now.”
At the beginning of the war, Ukraine used to have more than three million subscribers, now it counts around 663 thousand of subscribers.
Russia used different pro-Kremlin channels to spread disinformation. An active account is Surf Noise, which has 99 000 subscribers. Surf Noise continues to update their audience with news from Sputnik or RT (Russia Today).
In Western Balkan countries, Telegram is becoming popular, especially in Albania. There are two reasons for that.
Surprisingly, organized criminal groups used Telegram as a secure app to communicate between each-other. This was a way to avoid police investigations that resulted unsuccessful.
A group of Iranian hackers published sensitive and confidential data, threatening national security of Albania. A Telegram channel named: Homeland Justice published for the first time personal data of people in July 2022.
In Northern Macedonia, Telegram is ranked 7th most downloaded communication app. However, in July 2021 the government threatened to shut down the encrypted messaging platform, after a group with thousands members were sharing pornography, as well as images of underage girls.
After WhatsApp, Telegram is the most downloaded app in the Czech Republic. Drug sales are taking place online in Prague. During summer police have been investigating about 30 groups on Telegram that operate mainly in the Russian and Ukrainian languages.
Telegram was launched for the first time in 2013 by the brothers Nikolai and Pavel Durov.