Russia Places Telegram Founder Pavel Durov on Extremist and Terrorist List

Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) announced that Pavel Durov, the founder and owner of Telegram, has been charged with facilitating terrorist activity. The agency alleges that Ukrainian intelligence agencies use Telegram’s channels, chats and bots to plan sabotage, mass murder and cyber-fraud inside Russia, resulting in “numerous human casualties.” The FSB also claims a dating-chatbot on the platform recruited 46 users, aged 12 to 22, who have been detained for assaults on law-enforcement officers, arson and related offenses. Durov, a Russian-born billionaire now residing in Dubai and holding French and UAE citizenship, faces a potential life sentence if convicted.

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The charges appear amid a broader Kremlin effort, intensified since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, to bring the internet under state control. Under President Vladimir Putin, Russia has enacted restrictive laws, banned or throttled platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, X, YouTube, Signal and Viber, and limited access to WhatsApp and Telegram. The move to label Durov as an extremist aligns with recent actions by Rosfinmonitoring, the financial-monitoring agency, which added him to its list of extremists and terrorists on July 30.

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Rosfinmonitoring posted the designation on its website, stating that Durov is now subject to the same legal restrictions as entities such as the Taliban, U.S. tech company Meta and the “LGBT movement.” The Russian presidency’s Telegram channel clarified that no separate decision has been published designating Telegram as a banned organisation, so the app remains technically usable. Telegram’s official X account responded with a meme depicting Durov making an obscene gesture, while Durov himself posted a meme contrasting “terrorists’ accomplice” with a photo of Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov meeting Taliban representatives.

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• Telegram reports over 1 billion global users, with strong penetration in Russia, Ukraine and other ex-Soviet states.

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• The FSB’s accusation references 46 detained users of a Telegram-based dating chatbot.

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• Durov is 41 years old and was added to the extremist list alongside the Taliban, Meta and the “LGBT movement.”

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• “No separate decision has yet been published designating Telegram as a banned organisation, so there is currently no ban on the use of the Telegram messaging app.” — Russia. Telegram

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