Russia charged Telegram founder Pavel Durov with aiding terrorism this week and issued an international arrest warrant for him, escalating a criminal case the FSB opened in February on the same grounds.
The FSB says Kyiv’s intelligence services, along with terrorist and extremist groups, have relied on specific Telegram channels, chats and bots to organize attacks, killings and financial fraud inside Russia, and that Telegram’s leadership refused every request to take them down. The agency added that “an international wanted notice has been issued” for Durov, though it named no specific channels and published no evidence.
The charge falls under Part 1.1 of Article 205.1 of Russia’s criminal code, covering aid to terrorist activity. Russian state media cited the same figures in February, claiming more than 153,000 offenses have involved Telegram since 2022, roughly 33,000 of which involved sabotage, terrorism or extremism. Moscow has never independently verified those numbers.
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Neither Durov nor Telegram had commented on the new charges as of Wednesday evening. Durov dismissed the February case as a manufactured excuse for tightening restrictions on Telegram, saying it was really about suppressing “the right to privacy and free speech.”
Russia’s pressure on Telegram has included pushing users toward MAX, its own state-backed messaging app, which critics including Durov say Moscow designed for mass surveillance and censorship. Authorities have also degraded voice and video call quality on Telegram and, for a stretch this year, blocked it outright for some users.
French authorities arrested Durov at an airport near Paris in August 2024 and later indicted him on charges including complicity in enabling drug trafficking, fraud and the spread of child sexual abuse material through insufficient moderation, a case that remains open.
Read: Charges Released Against Telegram Founder Pavel Durov
Durov has denied wrongdoing, and his lawyers point to better cooperation between Telegram and French investigators since the arrest.
