A lot of speculation that does end with this in the article:

"After discussing her case with experts, Matsapulina now believes her Telegram messages may have been compromised by a form of spyware. When she was told that a hacking device would need to be physically nearby to infiltrate her phone, a memory resurfaced: At times before her arrest, she had noticed an unmarked truck with a dome on its roof parked outside her building. She had even jokingly mentioned it to friends on Telegram. Now, she remembered, as the police were banging on her door that morning, she’d spotted the same mystery vehicle parked outside. By the time the police stormed her home, the vehicle was gone.

Matsapulina has since started using Telegram again."

Most messaging apps are vulnerable on the client side with spyware, no matter what E2EE exists along the way.

where did you moved to? i tried matrix but their android client (element) is terrible compare to telegram's.

I deleted telegram long ago, but not my account, just the apps.

As of recent, I wanted to log back in and actually delete my phone number from there, so there's no more association.

I can't login. I download the app, and it sends a verification code through Telegram and won't do SMS, but I'm not logged in at all so I can't get the code.

I'm stuck there. I contacted support and they're yet to respond. :p

Also, these days telegram is really at the state of a pile of garbage, bloated, buggy, and shady messenger.

Every messenger is.

Deleted the app and account recently as well. I'm hoping that having the account deleted means that people don't try to use it to message me there.