lots of good advice here. I just want to restate: do yourself a favor and migrate your HDDs over to any solid state drive. Whether that means “classic” SSDs with a SATA-Port or M.2s is your prerogative, but in either case you’ll start wondering how you could ever stand that s pinning noise and the vibrations and the slow, slow data transfer.

Personally my phone is my backup wallet though contactless payments. I may forget to bring my wallet with me, but never my phone .

If you’d read the linked sources, you’d know that it’s not just speculation. Regardless of Telegram’s user base, it cooperates with Russian authorities. That remains true whether or not Ukranians use it to communicate. I’m not blaming Telegram for cooperating with Russian authorities as it’s well known that not doing so leads to drastic authoritarian measures.

But don’t take my word for it: Wikipedia: Blocking of Telegram in Russia

Sure, WhatsApp exposes you to US jurisdiction and Meta bullshit. At the same time, Telegram is very friendly with the Kremlin and associated intelligence services. So it basically comes down to whether you want to be spied on by Russian or US entities.

Source: Wired cover story

Wired story from a year ago about the FSB using Telegram to track down political activists.

And Germany!