Maybe I’m just uncreative, but I can’t think of a single explanation for this without raising more questions in the process.

An explanation for the trips: “he was just trying to negotiate keeping Telegram in Russia”

The new questions:

• If he knows Russia is going to crack down on free speech, why would he want to store easily accessible private message data there?
• What would he need to give up to appease Putin - or did he just succeed without making any concessions?