Russia’s Federal Security Service has brought terrorism-related charges against Pavel Durov, the Russian-born billionaire behind popular messaging app Telegram, once again placing the entrepreneur at the center of a dispute over whether technology platforms should be held responsible for crimes organized through their services.
The case stems from an alleged Ukrainian recruitment operation targeting young Russians through a Telegram dating chatbot. According to the FSB, victims were manipulated or coerced into committing arson, sabotage and other crimes.
FSB argues that as the owner of Telegram, Durov should be held accountable for failing to stop Ukrainian activities. The agency has said he is being placed on an international wanted list, although the process has not yet been completed.
The Dubai-based billionaire, who advocates a maximalist stance on freedom of speech, has had tenuous relationships with multiple governments, which he accused of trying to pressure him into political censorship and mass surveillance of Telegram users.
The FSB does not allege that the two cooperate in any nefarious way. The statement it released on Wednesday focuses on Ukrainian recruitment efforts through a dating chat bot popular among Russian youths.
The service, which investigators named as ‘Daivinchik / Leo – match and meet new friends,’ claims to serve over 13 million users per month.
According to the FSB, Ukrainian agents are using it for multistage scam and coercion operations and have successfully recruited at least 46 Russian citizens, aged between 12 and 22, since July 2025. The agency claims that Telegram has failed to block Daivinchik / Leo, along with several other services that are similarly exploited by Ukrainian special services.
According to the statement, Durov is accused of facilitating terrorism. If convicted, he could face a sentence of 15 years or more in prison. The charges against him involve either actively encouraging or providing direct material support for a terrorist plot, which may be challenging for Russian investigators to substantiate in court.
The FSB said it considers placing Durov on an international wanted list, but Russia’s ability to secure his extradition remains in question.
The latest case marks a sharp escalation in Telegram’s long and complicated relationship with the Russian state.
Russian authorities previously demanded that the company provide encryption keys needed to access messages linked to terrorism investigations. Durov refused, arguing that Telegram could not compromise private communications without undermining the security of all its users.
A court ordered the blocking of Telegram in Russia in 2018; however, attempts to enforce this ban were largely ineffective. The restrictions were officially lifted in 2020 after regulators acknowledged that the company had demonstrated a willingness to cooperate in efforts to combat terrorism and extremism.
Tensions have resurfaced as Moscow has tightened regulation of foreign-owned and privately controlled communications platforms. Telegram experienced access disruptions in Russia earlier this year, while authorities have also restricted or blocked a range of Western services.
At the same time, the government has promoted Max, a domestically developed messenger presented as part of Russia’s push for technological sovereignty. Telegram, however, remains deeply embedded in Russian public life and is widely used by officials, media organizations, and businesses.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said this week that Russian officials remained in contact with Telegram’s management over continuing access problems. “Contacts are taking place, but there has not been much activity from the messenger’s side so far,” he said.
The statement suggests that Moscow has not abandoned negotiations with the company, even as the FSB pursues a criminal case against its founder.
Russia is not the only country seeking to hold Durov responsible for activity conducted through Telegram.
The entrepreneur remains under judicial supervision in France following his arrest in 2024, although his travel restrictions were reportedly lifted in November 2025. French investigators have accused Telegram of failing to cooperate adequately in cases involving organized crime, illicit transactions and abusive content.
Durov has dismissed the notion that a platform owner should face prosecution for crimes committed by its users. He views the French case as an effort to compel Telegram to censor political discourse and undermine its privacy safeguards.
He sharpened that criticism after French cybercrime police raided the Paris offices of X as part of an investigation into the platform’s algorithms and its Grok artificial intelligence chatbot.
“Don’t be mistaken: this is not a free country,” Durov wrote, describing France as the only nation “criminally persecuting all social networks that give people some degree of freedom.”
He has also accused President Emmanuel Macron of seeking to turn the European Union into a “digital Gulag” and argued that European governments increasingly want citizens to rely on established media rather than social platforms for information.
His claims echo criticism contained in the US national security strategy released in December. The document warned that Europe faced not only economic stagnation but the prospect of “civilizational erasure,” citing immigration, falling birth rates, declining national confidence, and the “censorship of free speech and suppression of political opposition.”
The dispute surrounding Telegram is also part of a wider struggle over technological sovereignty. For much of the internet era, US corporations have dominated the global market for social networks, search engines, mobile operating systems and digital communications. Governments outside the United States have become increasingly concerned that essential communications infrastructure is controlled by companies subject to American law and political pressure.
Russia, China, the European Union and other powers have responded in different ways, ranging from data-localization rules and antitrust investigations to platform bans and the development of domestic alternatives.
Telegram occupies an unusual position in this contest. It is neither a conventional US technology company nor a Russian state-controlled platform. Durov was born in Russia, operates Telegram from Dubai, and reportedly holds several citizenships, exposing him to competing legal demands from multiple governments.
Durov has increasingly cast Telegram as an alternative to US-owned rivals, arguing that privacy has become part of geopolitical competition. He has repeatedly challenged WhatsApp’s security claims, recently saying a person would have to be “braindead to believe WhatsApp is secure in 2026” and asserting that Telegram’s engineers had identified multiple vulnerabilities in the Meta-owned platform’s encryption.
His comments came amid a lawsuit filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton accusing Meta of misleading users about the extent of WhatsApp’s privacy protections. The complaint alleges that Meta can access or analyze communications it publicly describes as protected by end-to-end encryption.
Meta has denied the allegations. Company spokesman Andy Stone said WhatsApp cannot access users’ encrypted messages and vowed to contest the lawsuit.
The claims have not been proven in court, and WhatsApp maintains that neither the company nor outside parties can read the content of properly encrypted conversations. Still, the litigation illustrates how privacy has become both a competitive weapon and a political issue in the global messaging market.
Durov’s challenge is that he is attempting to defend Telegram from several directions at once. Russia wants greater cooperation against Ukrainian operations and other security threats. France is pursuing him over alleged criminal misuse of the platform. Other governments want stricter content moderation, data access or compliance with local laws.
In an increasingly fragmented digital world, his multiple passports and Telegram’s lack of a clear national allegiance may provide flexibility. They may also leave him exposed to pressure from every side. Across the world, governments are becoming less willing to tolerate globally operating communications platforms that sit outside their legal and political control.
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