Russia Puts Pavel Durov on Wanted List—Telegram’s Response Needs No Translation

Russia's Federal Security Service charged Telegram founder Pavel Durov with facilitating terrorist activity and placed him on an international wanted list, accusing Ukrainian intelligence of using the messaging app to organize attacks inside Russia, according to Reuters on July 29.

The FSB and the state Investigative Committee announced the charges, Reuters reported, the culmination of a long investigation into Dubai-based Durov and his platform.
Telegram answered within hours. Reuters reported that the app's official X account posted an image of the Russian-born billionaire raising his middle finger.

The Russian service alleged that a Telegram chatbot called "Daivinchik/Leo," a popular dating service in Russia, had been turned into a recruitment channel by Ukrainian special services. According to the agency, operatives posing as young women contacted Russians through the bot, then coerced them into sabotage and terrorist acts.

The FSB claimed 46 Russians aged 12 to 22 were arrested over the past year after being recruited this way, tasked with attacking police or setting fire to transport, energy, communications, and financial infrastructure, Reuters reported. Ukraine did not immediately comment, according to the outlet.

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Reuters noted the FSB did not specify how Russia would enforce the listing. Any request to Interpol for a Red Notice would be unlikely to move quickly, a source familiar with the matter told the outlet.

Durov posted that he was in Georgia last week, Reuters reported, and his current location is unclear. Born in Russia, he now holds Emirati and French passports.

The charges extend a campaign against the app itself. Reuters reported that Moscow has effectively throttled Telegram, leaving Russians reliant on VPNs to reach it, even as the Kremlin and the defense ministry keep posting to the app daily.

Roskomnadzor  began deliberately slowing the service in February 2026, disrupting photos, videos, and voice notes, while authorities pushed the country's roughly 90 million Telegram users toward the state-backed messenger Max.

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Durov has faced legal pressure before. Reuters reported that French authorities arrested him in 2024 over allegations that Telegram failed to curb criminal activity and cooperate with investigators, then let him leave the country as the case continued. He denies wrongdoing and maintains that the platform exceeds its obligations, the outlet noted.

In April, according to Reuters, he wrote that a summons for "Suspect P.V. Durov" had been delivered to a Russian apartment where he had lived two decades earlier, and cast the case as retaliation for defending constitutional rights to free speech and private correspondence. "Proud to be guilty!" he wrote.

Earlier, Apple removed the Kremlin-backed messenger Max from its App Store in June, cutting off new downloads of the app Moscow has promoted as a Telegram replacement.

The case fits a broader campaign to tighten control over the internet inside Russia, where courts in Saint Petersburg have jailed residents for ten days each over years-old social media links to foreign platforms the state has since branded extremist, treating the old posts as a public demonstration of extremist symbols.

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