Pavel has a history of sketchy behavior, some leaked info by insider [1] has uncovered that many things Durov said about the location of the developers and Telegram development is false , and Durov's response to these allegations were extremely unconvincing.
I'm in a camp who thinks that this 'ban' was just a PR stunt coordinated with Roscomdanzor, which was known to be futile from the start and instantly raised the credibility of Telegram and cemented the myth how 'protected' it is.
There's no evidence the ban was a PR stunt, but it did play into Durov's hands, and through that, into the hands of the Kremlin when every dissident flocked to a service with centralized attack point to compromise all group chats -- the Telegram server.
For starters, the citizenship that was acquired for $ 250k something is from Saint Kitts and Nevis, known for it's abuse of human rights. To me it's a classical double standard behavior.
He's vocal on not being able to conduct business in Russia as he pleases and it's a clear violation in his purview. Never heard him being involved with fighting inequity of the new home country.
Second of all, Saudi Arabia, the unofficial Telegram HQ, is tax exempt for hi-tech, but don't quote me on it.
> For starters, the citizenship that was acquired for $ 250k something is from Saint Kitts and Nevis, known for it's abuse of human rights. To me it's a classical double standard behavior.
Blame the UK and EU who allow visa-free travel with SKN but not with Russia and don’t sanction it.
It is a country with a population of 50 000 people. The only reason it is not extremely poor is because its business model is giving citizenship to businessmen to avoid taxes and allow them to travel freely.
Fighting an obviously lost fight against SKN and jeopardizing your whole life sounds even more stupid than fighting windmills.
Known for its abuse of human rights? The only thing I could find was that male homosexuality is illegal there. You may regard that as abuse of a particular human right, but to me, it's considerably less than it sounded like you meant.
Sounds pretty complicated when a simpler answer would also exist.