Russia has charged Telegram founder Pavel Durov with assisting terrorist activity and begun procedures to place him on an international wanted list, sharply escalating the Kremlin's confrontation with one of the country's most prominent technology entrepreneurs.

Russia's Federal Security Service accused Durov of failing to remove Telegram channels, chats and automated bots allegedly used by Ukrainian intelligence agencies and extremist groups to organise sabotage, terrorist attacks and cybercrime inside Russia.

The authorities have not publicly presented evidence that Durov personally participated in, knew about or approved any of the alleged offences.

The FSB focused particular attention on DaiVinchik, a popular Telegram dating bot known internationally as Leo. It alleged that Ukrainian intelligence operatives posed as young women to recruit Russians, including minors, and persuade them to attack police officers, damage transport and energy infrastructure or carry out arson attacks.

Russian authorities said 46 people aged between 12 and 22 had been arrested over the past year in cases involving the bot.

The security service also claimed that more than 153,000 crimes involving Telegram had been recorded in Russia since 2022. It linked the platform to the March 2024 Crocus City Hall massacre outside Moscow, the killings of nationalist figures Darya Dugina and Maxim Fomin, better known as Vladlen Tatarsky, and the deaths of nine senior Russian military officers, including Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov.

The FSB said the telecoms regulator Roskomnadzor had sent Telegram more than 150,000 requests to remove prohibited material that went unanswered. The figures and Telegram's alleged connection to individual attacks have not been independently verified.

The criminal case is being pursued under provisions of Russia's criminal code covering assistance to terrorist activity. Durov, 41, could theoretically face life imprisonment if convicted.

However, Moscow's decision to place Durov on an international wanted list does not automatically amount to an Interpol red notice. The FSB has not said which international mechanism it intends to use, and Interpol's constitution prevents it from intervening in cases it considers predominantly political.

Durov, who lives in Dubai and holds French and Emirati passports, has not issued a detailed response to the latest accusations. Telegram's official account on X responded by posting an image of him making an obscene gesture towards Moscow.

When the investigation was disclosed in February, Durov wrote: "Russia has opened a criminal case against me for 'aiding terrorism'. Every day, the authorities invent new pretexts to restrict Russians' access to Telegram, while trying to suppress the right to privacy and freedom of expression. It is the sad spectacle of a state that is afraid of its own people."

The case comes as the Kremlin intensifies pressure on Telegram while promoting MAX, a state-backed messaging platform developed by VK. MAX has been made mandatory on new smartphones and incorporated into a growing range of government services, prompting concerns that it could provide the authorities with greater access to private communications. Moscow denies that the service is intended for surveillance.

Roskomnadzor has progressively restricted Telegram's functions and accused the company of failing to co-operate with law-enforcement requests. Yet Telegram remains indispensable to Russia's state agencies, regional administrations, pro-Kremlin propagandists, military correspondents and Russian forces deployed in Ukraine.

The platform, founded by Pavel and his brother Nikolai Durov in 2013, now has more than 1bn users. Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, it has simultaneously served as a news network, propaganda platform, air-raid warning system and military communications channel for both sides.

Durov first challenged the Russian security services while running VKontakte, the social network he created with his brother as a Russian equivalent of Facebook.

During the anti-Kremlin protests of 2011 and 2012, he refused requests to close pages used by demonstrators. In 2014, he also rejected demands to provide the FSB with personal information belonging to Ukrainian activists associated with the Maidan revolution.

He was subsequently pushed out of VKontakte, which came under the control of investors close to the Kremlin, and left Russia.

The confrontation continued after he founded Telegram. Russia attempted to block the service between 2018 and 2020 after the company refused to provide the FSB with encryption keys. The technically unsuccessful ban disrupted numerous unrelated internet services before the authorities abandoned it.

Durov is also under judicial investigation in France, where he was detained at Le Bourget airport in August 2024.

French prosecutors are investigating whether Telegram's limited moderation and alleged failure to respond to official requests facilitated crimes including drug trafficking, fraud, money laundering and the distribution of child sexual abuse material. Durov was released after posting €5mn bail and placed under judicial supervision.

He was questioned again in Paris for more than six hours in July. Telegram has strengthened its moderation procedures and co-operation with some legally valid information requests since his French arrest, while Durov has argued that holding a platform's chief executive criminally responsible for offences committed by users represents an excessively broad interpretation of complicity.

Extradition to Russia appears unlikely. France generally does not extradite its own nationals, while the UAE also recognises Durov as a citizen. Any request transmitted through Interpol would have to be examined separately by the authorities in each country.

The Russian prosecution nevertheless places Durov in the unusual position of facing simultaneous legal pressure from Moscow and Paris — Russia accusing him of refusing to censor Telegram sufficiently for the state, and France examining whether the platform has done too little to prevent criminal abuse.

A few notes: I found no archive coverage of the DaiVinchik/Leo bot specifically, the July Paris questioning session, or Durov's specific 2011/2014 VKontakte confrontations with the FSB — those are left unlinked since bne hasn't run a dedicated piece on them. The VKontakte link and the UAE-citizen link both point to the same 2024 piece since it's the only one in the archive covering both angles; worth a dedicated VKontakte-history piece if you want a cleaner single-purpose link there.