Russia has been mentioned 7 times in this discussion now, every time by you. I don't have any stake in this fight; I don't use or recommend any of these applications. But you do seem to have a bone to pick.
I think it's better to focus on Telegram's open specification and implementation instead of bashing it because the developers happen to be born somewhere you don't like.
When the vendor is intentionally collecting and defending the collection of such vast amounts of data, you have to ask, who might benefit if Telegram was a front.
I'm not specifically against Russia or US, I'm just someone who'd prefer people to have the right to their privacy. Mass surveillance isn't healthy for society, and Telegram is enabling it with their silo of user data.
So ultimately, it doesn't matter if Durov is directly playing for any big party, the problem is there's not enough tech in place to prove he isn't and when that's the case, Telegram servers and the user data that sits there, is a free for all. A server in UK is not legally, (or technically) protected from the NSA, CCA, Fancy Bear, Unit 8200, Iranian Cyber Army etc.
The only bone to pick here is any vendor who'd claim to be fighting for privacy when their privacy-by-design architecture is indistinguishable from honey pots and surveillance capitalistic companies.
So exactly like servers from Facebook, Signal, Google, German police, etc. anywhere on earth. Just ask NSA (or Snowden). This is the whole China debate over again: Who would you rather that have access to all your old data the day something you did years ago suddenly become a danger to you because some fascist person became a dictator? China, who likely cannot touch you if you are outside Mainland China or the US, who will happily kidnap you from almost any place on earth if they dislike you enough (often with local help)? I'd rather put my eggs in a Chinese (or Russian) basket than a US/UK one if I had to pick only between those options.
I'm equally against everyone reading my private messages. I don't want to have to choose a country who has my messages, I choose my computer, and the computer of my peer, where ever they are.