Telegram founder Pavel Durov has answered Russia’s terrorism fees, 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 someday after the Federal Safety Service (FSB) opened a felony case towards him.
Durov Solutions 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. Underneath Russian regulation, I’m banned from “publishing info on the Web”. Russian officers have clearly received confused about who can ban whom from the Web,” Durov wrote.
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The picture positioned his personal photograph, captioned terrorist, beside Taliban representatives greeting Russian Overseas Minister Sergey Lavrov, captioned revered companions. Russia’s Supreme Court docket eliminated the Taliban from that very same registry in April 2025.
What the Designation Truly Modifications
Russian banks should freeze the private 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 potential life sentence. Officers 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 journey restrictions in November.
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