Pavel Durov, the founder of Telegram, says the Russian actions against him are an attempt to suppress privacy and free speech. Photograph: Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP/Getty Images View image in fullscreen Pavel Durov, the founder of Telegram, says the Russian actions against him are an attempt to suppress privacy and free speech. Photograph: Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP/Getty Images Telegram Russia accuses Telegram founder of aiding terrorism in its latest online crackdown FSB puts Pavel Durov on international wanted lists and says his messaging app is used for sabotage and murder
Prefer the Guardian on Google Russian officials have charged Pavel Durov , the founder and chief executive of the messaging app Telegram, with aiding terrorism.
The charges against the 41-year-old Russian-born billionaire , who lives in the Gulf, are the latest step by the Kremlin to bring the internet and digital communications under its control after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
The Federal Security Service said in a statement on Wednesday it had accused Telegram of failing to remove “numerous channels, chats and bots” allegedly used by “Ukrainian intelligence agencies, terrorist and extremist organizations to prepare and coordinate acts of sabotage and terrorism, mass murder, and cyber fraud” in Russia.
The FSB said Kyiv was using a dating chatbot on Telegram to lure and recruit Russians for “sabotage and terrorist activities” and it had detained 46 users, aged from 12 to 22, for assaulting law enforcement officers, arson and other acts over the past year.
The agency said it was adding Durov’s name to international wanted lists.
Durov said earlier this year that Russian officials had opened a criminal investigation against him and he accused them of fabricating pretexts to restrict access to Telegram and “suppress the right to privacy and free speech”.
If brought to trial and convicted, he could face life in prison.
Telegram, which boasts more than 1 billion users worldwide, did not respond to a request for comment. Its official website links to an account on X that on Wednesday posted an image of Durov raising a middle finger to the camera.
The website says the company is based in Dubai and that Durov, who holds dual citizenship of France and the United Arab Emirates, lives there too.
View image in fullscreen Pavel Durov speaks at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, in February 2016. Photograph: Manuel Blondeau/Corbis/Getty Images Under Vladimir Putin , Russian authorities have banned websites and platforms that do not comply with tight restrictions. They have also developed technology to monitor and manipulate online traffic.
Facebook, Instagram and X have been banned in Russia and YouTube has been throttled. Popular messaging apps, such as Signal and Viber, have been blocked, and the most popular ones, WhatsApp and Telegram, have been restricted.
VKontakte, a popular social media platform founded by Durov well before he launched Telegram, has come under the control of Kremlin-friendly companies. Russia tried to block Telegram between 2018 and 2020 but failed.
It is possible to circumvent some Kremlin restrictions by using virtual private networks (VPNs) but many of these are now being blocked.
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