Pavel Durov, the founding father of Telegram and developer of The Open Community (TON), revealed in a latest interview that he believed he was poisoned in 2018. The incident allegedly occurred throughout a time of escalating pressure between his messaging app and the Russian authorities.
Throughout that interval, Telegram refused a requirement from Russia’s Federal Safety Service for encryption keys, in search of entry to messaging knowledge. The nation banned the messaging app quickly after.
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Pavel Durov’s Close to-Deadly Collapse
In an interview on the Lex Fridman podcast, Durov revealed struggling a poisoning try throughout the spring of 2018. He defined that TON was attempting to boost funds for a associated challenge.
The alleged incident happened at a time when Durov was experiencing important monetary success. Telegram had accomplished two funding rounds, elevating about $1.7 billion from key buyers.
He described returning house one evening to search out one thing a “bizarre neighbor” had left across the door.
“One hour after, after I was already in my mattress… I felt very unhealthy. I felt ache throughout my physique. I attempted to rise up and go to the lavatory, however whereas I used to be going there, I felt that features of my physique began to modify off,” he stated.
As Durov defined, Telegram’s refusal to offer encryption keys for messaging knowledge to Russian safety providers led Russia to ban the app in April 2018.
Different high-profile incidents of alleged poisoning by Russian intelligence additionally marked that interval. In March 2018, the British authorities accused Russian state actors of utilizing a nerve agent on Sergei Skripal, a former Russian navy intelligence officer who had served as a double agent for the UK.
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Durov stated it wasn’t the primary time state actors pressured him over Telegram’s operations.
Durov Accuses French Intelligence of Blackmail
Earlier this week, Durov made a social media publish relating to latest elections in Moldova. He claimed that French authorities had pressured him to ban pro-Russian channels on Telegram a 12 months earlier.
The European Union and Russia allegedly carried out steady efforts to exert affect over Moldova’s election regarding whether or not the nation ought to pursue EU membership or set up nearer ties with Russia.
Investigators just lately uncovered a pro-Russian marketing campaign that used cryptocurrency to finance varied actions, together with supporting candidates, activists, and polling operations.
Durov, nevertheless, claimed that French officers tried to affect Moldova’s elections by pressuring him to ban pro-Russian Telegram channels linked to the vote. In accordance with his account, the French authorities advised that aiding them would end result of their offering a good assertion to the French choose who had ordered his arrest in August 2024.
“This was unacceptable on a number of ranges. If the company did in reality strategy the choose — it constituted an try and intervene within the judicial course of. If it didn’t, and merely claimed to have executed so, then it was exploiting my authorized scenario in France to affect political developments in Japanese Europe,” Durov acknowledged on X.
Regardless of Durov’s claims, they haven’t but been substantiated with concrete proof.