Telegram is more a social media than a messenger app, group chats and channels can’t be encrypted but 1 to 1 chats can be

I’ve been in channels and group chats about Ukraine since 2014 (unencrypted as I said) and nothing serious ever happened,

no censorship, no ban (from Telegram I mean), russian trolls raids from time to time but easily contained

I wouldn’t use Telegram for day to day communication but to stay informed about what matters to you without big risks of censorship it’s great