Telegram Popular Channels and Groups in Russia and Ukraine

Telegram Popular Channels and Groups in Russia and Ukraine We first identified the channels and groups for analysis through Tgstat https://tgstat.com/, a webpage that provides information about Telegram's usage statistics, which is widely used in research concerning the messenger service. On the Tgstat webpage, we searched for the largest news channels and groups in Russia and Ukraine with regard to subscribers. A channel is a one-to-many broadcast medium where only designated administrators can post messages; a group is a many‐to‐many chat space in which any member can participate in discussions. The data was collected using Telegram’s API and the Python library Telethon, creating a unique dataset consisting of 24,947,403 messages from 200 open channels and groups. We scraped data from January 1, 2022, to June 13, 2025We scrapped the following attributes, excluding any personal identifiers:chat_ididchat_namepeer_idmessagedatetimemessagedatemessagetextoutmentionedmedia_unreadsilentpostfrom_scheduledlegacyedit_hidepinnednoforwardsinvert_mediaofflinefrom_idfrom_boosts_appliedsaved_peer_idfwd_fromfwd_from_typevia_bot_idvia_business_bot_idreply_toreply_markupentitiesedit_datepost_authorgrouped_idttl_periodquick_reply_shortcut_ideffectfactcheckviewsforwardsrepliesreactions