Telegram co-founder Pavel Durov has been charged with facilitating terrorist activities and procedures to declare an international arrest warrant for him have been initiated, the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) said on July 29.
Telegram administrator Pavel Durov has been charged with facilitating terrorist activities within the framework of a criminal case under investigation and an international arrest warrant has been issued against him," the FSB stated in a statement.
According to this agency, "the Telegram board has not removed many channels, chat groups and bots that were actively used by Ukrainian special forces and terrorist and extremist organizations to plan and organize acts of sabotage, terrorism, mass murder and cybercrime in Russia, affecting many people, including women and children, causing financial losses of billions of rubles".
In February 2026, Russian media quoted documents from the FSB as saying that Mr. Durov's actions are being investigated within the framework of a criminal case for facilitating terrorism. Accordingly, more than 153,000 crimes committed through Telegram have been recorded in Russia since 2022.
Among them, there was the attack on the Crocus City Hall in March 2024, along with the assassinations of Russian bloggers and journalists Darya Dugina and Maxim Fomin, better known as Vladlen Tatarsky, and 9 senior military officials including Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov - head of the Russian radiation, chemical and biological hazard prevention force.
Explosions and arsons at recruitment centers are also organized through this messaging application. The FSB has prevented 475 terrorist attacks planned through Telegram, including 61 mass killings by teenagers in schools. In addition, about 700 direct threats have targeted families of Russian soldiers on Telegram, the newspaper wrote.
Russia's telecommunications supervisory agency Roskomnadzor has sent more than 150,000 requests to Mr. Durov's team to remove illegal content, but most of these requests have been ignored.
