By Yulia Schneider
Published on
Russia opened a criminal investigation into Telegram founder Pavel Durov on charges of facilitating terrorist activity, according to state-owned Rossiyskaya Gazeta and pro-government tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda.
Both outlets referred to Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) and claimed Telegram has been used in more than 153,000 crimes since 2022, including 33,000 involving sabotage, terrorism and extremism.
The articles accused Durov of refusing to cooperate with Russian authorities and of ignoring more than 150,000 requests from Russia’s media watchdog Roskomnadzor to remove illegal content.
“Roskomnadzor has sent more than 150,000 appeals to Durov’s team through official contacts demanding the removal of illegal content. And what happened? They were cynically ignored,” Rossiyskaya Gazeta wrote.
The FSB alleged that in March 2024 Telegram facilitated the Crocus City Hall terrorist attack that killed 145 people, as well as the killings of Darya Dugina, the daughter of nationalist-supremacist philosopher Aleksandr Dugin, and General Igor Kirillov.
Rossiyskaya Gazeta described Durov as a “foreign-influenced gentleman” and accused him of “directly assisting the enemy in the conditions of hybrid warfare”.
Russia-born Telegram founder has a controversial reputation regarding his cooperation with the Kremlin.
He left Russia for Dubai in 2014 after refusing to comply with demands to shut down opposition communities on his VK social media platform and hand over user data. But since then there have been signs of him possibly reconciling with the Kremlin.
A journalistic investigation revealed that Durov visited Russia over 50 times between 2015 and 2021.
Earlier, the Telegram founder criticised the restrictions on its operations in Russia, saying that the lack of competition reduces the security of communication.
Claims of complete Telegram ban grow louder
Russia restricted Telegram calling functionality in August 2025 and significantly slowed the app’s speed from 10 February, causing disruptions and effective blocking in several Russian regions. Roskomnadzor said traffic degradation reached 55%.
Russia previously attempted to block Telegram in 2018 but lifted restrictions in June 2020 after Durov agreed to cooperate on countering terrorism and extremism. The agency lacked the technical capability to fully block the app at the time.
Durov said in February that Russia was restricting Telegram to force citizens to switch to Max, a state-backed messenger experts say can be used to track and spy on its users.
“Russia is restricting access to Telegram in an attempt to force its citizens to switch to a state-controlled app created for surveillance and political censorship,” he said.
Russian officials argue that imposing Max on citizens will not only provide users with a domestically made communication tool but also give them access to state services.
But according to the Russian messenger’s privacy policy, the service can transfer user data to any authority upon request, as well as collect information about visited web pages.
Rossiyskaya Gazeta accused Durov of making “provocative statements” comparing Russia to Iran. “Does he not want to hint that his platform is ready to become a battering ram for a new ‘colour revolution’ in our country?” the article said.
Independent media and experts have linked the Telegram restrictions to Russian authorities’ fears of protests following potential new mobilisation.
Durov was detained in France for four days in August 2024 after arriving at Le Bourget Airport near Paris. French authorities charged him on 28 August with 12 counts, including complicity in distributing child sexual abuse material, drug trafficking, money laundering and refusing to cooperate with law enforcement.
The Paris court released Durov on bail of €5 million, as well as a travel ban and a requirement to report to police twice a week. French prosecutors said Telegram exhibited an “almost total failure to respond to judicial requests,” citing 2,460 unanswered requests over 11 years.
France lifted Durov’s travel ban on 13 November 2025 after he complied with the requirements of judicial supervision for one year. The French criminal investigation remains active.
After Durov’s detention in France, Telegram began responding more actively to European law enforcement requests and introduced additional content moderation tools. The platform reported blocking more than 34 million groups and channels in 2025.
Since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia has gradually blocked Facebook and Instagram in March 2022 and Signal around August 2024.
It has also partially restricted Telegram and WhatsApp by August 2025, then Snapchat and FaceTime in December 2025, and in February 2026, WhatsApp was completely blocked.
All these steps apparently did not provoke the same reaction from Russians as the current all-out push against Telegram, which, according to Mediascope, is used by more than 90 million of the country’s residents every month.
Blocked services can be accessed with a VPN, and this option is likely to remain in place for Durov’s messenger.
According to March 2025 data from the Levada Centre, a non-governmental sociological group, 36% of Russians regularly or occasionally use VPNs, up from 25% a year earlier.
