They had a confrontation where Russian government blocked Telegram until they give access. Then later lo and behold they unblocked Telegram with the above statement by Durov. I don't see how it's too uncharitable of an interpretation of those events that I have.
That Russians and Ukrainians use Telegram is the exact issue here! Tons of my fellow Russians and I imagine most Ukrainians use Telegram to exchange statements that literally make them extremists or just criminals in the eyes of Russian gov, the very gov Durov declared collaboration with to get unblocked in the country where TG has the most users, they do it every day and without the impaired secret chats feature.
Secret chats are inconsistent across devices, lack features like message preview in notifications, can't unsend messages, entire chat histories are lost, the list goes on.
That Russians and Ukrainians use Telegram is the exact issue here! Tons of my fellow Russians and I imagine most Ukrainians use Telegram to exchange statements that literally make them extremists or just criminals in the eyes of Russian gov, the very gov Durov declared collaboration with to get unblocked in the country where TG has the most users, they do it every day and without the impaired secret chats feature.