It's not that you're wrong; it's that that I wouldn't be so sure that you're right about it.

Russia's leadership is not monolithic, and it's decisions are not rational. Some critics are killed even though they do not pose a significant threat. Some are able to continue their fight. Some have allies on the inside; some are said to actually be controlled by the government.

If anything, history of such politics teaches me that it's chaos all the way down and almost no one has the full picture, neither knows what he's doing.

This is the most important thing to understand: non-Russian media loves to persist a never-ending charade that the whole of the Russian government is a direct limb of Putin and controlled wholly by him, which is quite far from true. It makes for a good narrative though, and since the Russian government is perhaps closer to that model than others, passes by readers unnoticed.

There are very much parts of the Russian political elite that will use violent and coercive means outside their official mandate to silence individuals. Roskomnadzor isn't really one of those, and is mostly limited to spewing more things onto blocklists to the chagrin of ISPs and people who actually understand the internet.

More likely Telegram is unblocked because someone higher-up finally got around to telling Roskomnadzor to fuck off and stop being a nuisance here, since its order never succeeded in actually blocking Telegram and mostly served to disrupt access to cloud service providers (breaking other, non-Telegram applications) as RKN ineffectually tried to issue block orders for entire AWS and GCP network ranges. Other parts of the government clearly didn't care much about the order (they continued to use Telegram for official business after the block), and it seems like it was either RKN attempting to flex its muscles to impress higher-ups or an unsuccessful attempt to put pressure on Telegram that the government has finally given up on.

> Knowing that, it's hard to explain how Telegram kept maintaining an office in Russia.

Telegram has an office in Russia? Do you have sources? I cannot find one to confirm, and as far as I know that's not the case.

In Russian https://www.bbc.com/russian/news-41310615

Have you even read this article? Because it contains dubios allegations from a single person and an explicit denial from Durov.

I took a time and read it and also read much more.

It is a good example of "he said she said". But Igor Ashmanov considers Rosenberg a good source on Durov brothers and lets say information above is correct.

That means that Durov is used a part of the real estate he had access to to help development of Telegram. It does not mean that Durov is (not) affiliated with Russian government it just means that for Durov it is useful to use Russian real estate he knows and adores and to use Russian talent.

It looks like Telegram servers are somewhere in Europe, BTW.

>The most obvious fact is that Mr. Durov is not walking with a hole in his head, as a double digit portion of anybody who had balls to be audacious about their opposition.

I think you are talking about Clinton Foundation, aren't you? A joke, of course.

Can you help me to access statistics from which you inferred "double digit portion"?

Not that I am pro-Russian-government, I am not. I just sense here something that is not completely right with my view of the world and I want to get better in that regard.

It also lists Chechen terrorists. The same kind of list for the US would include thousands of people killed by drone strikes.

If you're seriously going to downvote me and claim that Russia hasn't been assassinating people then you're either being paid by their government or you're just being a troll. If you want to dispute the list Wikipedia posted, then dispute it. The "But the US kills people too!" is literally completely irrelevant. And if you want to cite a list of US journalists who have been hunted down and assassinated by direction of the President, be my guest - please just hold your breath until your list hits 5 names.

The idea isn't that Russia doesn't assassinate people, it does. The idea is that Russia assassinates everyone that opposes it even when it is against their interest.

So... we're moving the goal posts? Because OP said he didn't believe that double digit people had been assassinated by Russia, so I provided his proof. I haven't seen anyone claim "Russia assassinates EVERYONE that opposes it" besides you.

The claim was not that more than 9 people were assassinated by Russia, but that 10% or more of the entire opposition was assassinated. Which is absolutely not supported and would lead to at the very least hundreds of thousands of assassinations.

And now I'd like to see a list of living Russian people who oppose Russian government. The problem, for me, was the claim about double digits part (I think it was about percentage - the double digits thing).

Opposing is not enough. Opposing while being popular (or wealthy), now that puts one at risk.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_in_...

https://www.rferl.org/a/nemtsov-murder-russia-political-kill...

You keep presenting a list of homicides and/or contract killings.

Going by exemplar logic in your answer to gdy above, you are either paid by, say, Navalny or you are a troll. Okay then.

Great collection of propaganda bull*t, bro.

Is it Nemtsov "an audacious opposition" in your opinion? As much as I don't like the Putin rule, Nemtsov popularity was really minor to influence anything. If anything it was the "non-systematic opposition" who won most from his death.

Sorry, but you managed to write both grotesque and extremely simplified description of Russian political practices.

There's absolutely no point in making any physical moves against Durov even if he was openly anti-Putin and supported opposition in any way. It's never done like that. He's already forced out of the country and is not considered a direct threat. He or his remaining actives may be considered a future asset, on the other hand.

> even if he was openly anti-Putin and supported opposition in any way

This implies he does not support opposition in any way. This is not true. He does support opposition rallies—when they are held to support his cause, true, but such is political climate in Russia that publically supporting those who vocally oppose the state policy is a domain for very few and quite brave.

When Libertarian Party of Russia was organizing a rally in 2017 to protest Telegram ban, Durov contacted the Party himself. (I'm a member of LP RU.)

I don't count on Telegram security but Durov's public image and actions are certainly noticeable and appreciated by opposition.

> This implies he does not support opposition in any way. This is not true.

It implied just that I don't know for sure and it does not change a lot. Even Khodorkovsky is not considered a threat worthy of eliminating - he much better serves the cause being a propaganda target. Durov has even more to offer to Russian gov't (digital technology is the new arms race) so he has even lesser chance of bodily harm.

But isn't it remarkable that Telegram after all of these years still doesn't do E2EE by default, Telegram rolls its own crypto (of which the first version had significant problems) and still Telegram is used so much in Russia?

Minor correction. Telegram does not use its own crypto, it uses well-known cryptographic primitives. (However community criticised telegram for the poor choice of those well-known primitives)