Telegram Founder Pavel Durov Finally Breaks Silence on Russia Charges
Telegram founder Pavel Durov has answered Russia's terrorism charges, accusing Moscow of punishing him for rejecting state demands for mass surveillance and censorship on the messaging app.
Rosfinmonitoring, Russia's financial monitoring service, added Durov to its registry of terrorists and extremists on Thursday. The listing arrived one day after the Federal Security Service (FSB) opened a criminal case against him.
Durov Answers Moscow With a Meme
Durov did not rebut the allegations point by point. He posted a short statement to his Telegram channel, then followed it with a two-panel image.
"Russia has designated me as a "terrorist" for refusing its demands for mass surveillance and censorship on Telegram. Under Russian law, I'm banned from "publishing information on the Internet". Russian officials have clearly got confused about who can ban whom from the Internet," Durov wrote.
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The image placed his own photo, captioned terrorist, beside Taliban representatives greeting Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, captioned respected partners. Russia's Supreme Court removed the Taliban from that same registry in April 2025.
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