Durov added that he initially proposed to restrict Russian and Ukrainian Telegram channels to curb the spread of "military propaganda" at the very beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. However, this was ultimately not implemented due to user feedback.
“We received official letters from Apple stating that certain changes are unavoidable, at least for users accessing Telegram on iPhones with Ukrainian SIM cards...,” said Durov.
“To remain available to our users, Telegram must comply with requests from the App Store. If it were solely up to us, we would always provide our users with what they ask for: uncensored access to information and opinions to make their own decisions. However, it's not always up to us.”
Earlier, it was reported that Telegram had received a list of potentially problematic channels from the Ukrainian authorities and was reviewing them.