Russia Charges Telegram’s Pavel Durov With Aiding Terrorism

Russia’s Federal Security Service said it has charged Telegram founder Pavel Durov with aiding terrorist activity and placed him on an international wanted list. The FSB’s public relations center said Wednesday that Durov was charged under Part 1.1 of Article 205.1 of the Russian criminal code, according to local news agency Interfax.

The FSB alleged that Telegram does not remove channels, chats and bots “actively used by Ukrainian special services, terrorist and extremist organizations” to prepare and coordinate sabotage, mass killings and cyber fraud in Russia. It said the consequences included deaths, among them women and children, and billions in material damage.

Minutes after the announcement, the FSB said 46 Russians had been detained after allegedly being recruited by Ukraine through a Telegram dating bot.

Soon after news of the charges broke, Telegram’s account on X posted a photograph of Durov raising his middle finger, which The Moscow Times reported as a response to the warrant. Durov has not addressed Wednesday’s charge directly. When the case was opened in February he tweeted that the authorities “fabricate new pretexts” to restrict Russians’ access to Telegram, calling it “a sad spectacle of a state afraid of its own people.”

What the listing means

A Russian wanted-list entry is a domestic designation and does not compel other states to act. Durov has not lived in Russia since 2014 and is based in Dubai. AFP has reported that he holds at least four passports—Russian, French, Emirati and Saint Kitts and Nevis. Any Interpol notice would require a separate request and Interpol’s own review.

Durov was already indicted in France in 2024 over drug trafficking, organized fraud and child sexual abuse material on Telegram, and released under judicial supervision on a €5 million ($5.5 million) bond. Both cases rest on the same claim, that Telegram will not remove content or cooperate with investigators, brought by governments on opposite sides of the war in Ukraine. Durov denies wrongdoing and has called the French case “legally and logically absurd.”

Russia began restricting Telegram in August last year and has fined the platform 100 million rubles ($1.3 million) so far this year, mostly for failing to delete banned content, Interfax reported. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday that contacts over restoring the service continue, though Telegram’s representatives were “not very active.” The state has been promoting its own MAX messenger, which activists have dismissed as a “digital trap.”

Telegram and GRAM

Telegram said this month it would push a native, non-custodial GRAM wallet to more than a billion users, a rollout Durov called the largest in history. The token, renamed from Toncoin in June after an 81% community vote, rose 7% on that announcement.

GRAM traded at $1.42 on Wednesday, down 2.5%, per CoinGecko data.