Whatsapp is considered insecure and banned from use for military in Russia. Telegram, on the other hand, is widely used. Of course that's not something definitive, but just a food for thought.
> but just a food for thought.
...that telegram is backdoored by the russians? The implication you're trying to make seems to be that russians must be choosing telegram because it's secure, but are ignoring the possibility that they're choosing telegram because they have access to it. After all, you think they want the possibility of their military scheming against them?
Telegram which famously didn't have _any_ end to end encryption for ages, and even now only has very limited opt-in "secret chats"?