Telegram Founder Pavel Durov Finally Breaks Silence on Russia Charges

Telegram founder Pavel Durov has answered Russia’s terrorism prices, accusing Moscow of punishing him for rejecting state calls for for mass surveillance and censorship on the messaging app.

Rosfinmonitoring, Russia’s monetary monitoring service, added Durov to its registry of terrorists and extremists on Thursday. The itemizing arrived in the future after the Federal Security Service (FSB) opened a felony case in opposition to him.

Durov Answers Moscow With a Meme

Durov didn’t rebut the allegations level by level. He posted a brief assertion to his Telegram channel, then adopted it with a two-panel picture.

“Russia has designated me as a “terrorist” for refusing its calls for for mass surveillance and censorship on Telegram. Under Russian regulation, I’m banned from “publishing data on the Internet”. Russian officers have clearly bought confused about who can ban whom from the Internet,” Durov wrote.

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The image positioned his personal picture, captioned terrorist, beside Taliban representatives greeting Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, captioned revered companions. Russia’s Supreme Court eliminated the Taliban from that very same registry in April 2025.

What the Designation Actually Changes

Russian banks should freeze the non-public belongings of anybody on the Rosfinmonitoring listing and minimize off monetary providers. That obligation covers Durov himself, not Telegram as a authorized entity.

The FSB alleges the platform didn’t delete channels, chats, and bots that Ukrainian intelligence and extremist teams used to prepare assaults inside Russia. Durov, 41, now sits on the worldwide needed listing and faces a doable life sentence. Officials had been negotiating with Telegram days earlier.

Markets shrugged. Gram (GRAM), the Telegram-linked token Durov rebranded from Toncoin in June, traded close to $1.42, up 1.7% over 24 hours.

Enforcement stays the open query. Durov holds French and UAE citizenship and lives in Dubai, so any arrest would want cooperation Moscow has not but secured. French prosecutors lifted his travel restrictions in November.

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