Yeah, right... How many russian phones do you know? To me, only YotaPhone is known (even though it was recently sold abroad, IIRC), but this statement is relevant to the whole russian market:

Sure, the statement has since been dismissed as a "poorly translated and taken out of context", but the genie is out of the bottle. What other reaction would anyone expect after revealing such info...

You are definitely entitled to this opinion; I have it the other way around. I am always astonished by such claims, but I am glad they exist - it is always good to push your government to better privacy protection - on the other hand, people should really read up on the history of the pre-1989 Eastern block and appreciate how lucky they are they didn't (or don't) live there. Being aware of the history of my country, I would definitely be rather spied on by US government than the Russian one. Of course, the history of the Iron Curtain is not very known in the UK or in the US (it is not even broadly known or taught in schools in my country), so the misconceptions are understandable, however, people should be reminded once in a while (hence my post).


EDIT: I'm not trying to say only russian phones are likely to have backdoors - there are other likely contestants (and even more likely contestants). But with any system that contains closed components (SailfishOS included), there is always a chance, even if it hasn't been found yet. And when you do have a backdoor, it's also relevant how and by whom it might be used.