Russia’s main security service said on Wednesday that it had charged the founder of Telegram, one of the most popular messaging apps in the country and around the world, with facilitating terrorism, escalating the Kremlin’s efforts to restrict all means of communication not under its direct control.
The security service, the F.S.B., said in a statement that it had issued an international warrant to arrest the Telegram founder, Pavel Durov, 41, who is Russian-born. The service accused Telegram of failing to remove information “actively used by Ukrainian special services, terrorist organizations and extremist organizations to prepare and coordinate sabotage and terrorist acts, mass killings and cyber fraud activities” in Russia.
This year, the Kremlin restricted the use of Telegram in Russia and promoted an alternative, MAX, a state-backed messaging app. The Kremlin has used various methods to try to restrict access to Telegram in the past. In 2018, the authorities made a first attempt to block the app but it remained widely used, ultimately forcing the authorities to admit defeat two years later.
The announcement about the charges against Mr. Durov came a day after Dmitri S. Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman, told the Russian news agency Interfax that the authorities had been in touch with Telegram’s leadership to discuss lifting restrictions on the app.
Some Kremlin analysts suggested that the timing of Mr. Peskov’s comment and the subsequent announcement of the charges against Mr. Durov reflected an internal battle in the Russian government over whether to allow more freedom for the app or to limit its use.
Ilya Grashchenkov, a Moscow-based political analyst, wrote on his Telegram channel, “For now, this appears less like the final chapter for Telegram in Russia than another round in the ongoing battle over its control.”
Despite the restrictions imposed last year, Telegram is widely used in Russia through virtual private networks, or VPNs, not only for direct communication but also by media outlets to relay news and other information not sanctioned by the Kremlin. The service is also popular among the military on both sides of the Russia-Ukraine war.
Telegram says that it has more than a billion active users around the world. In April, Mr. Durov said that even with the restrictions, 65 million Russians still used Telegram on a daily basis.
In its statement announcing the arrest warrant, the F.S.B. cited a specific case in which it said a dating chat on Telegram was used by Ukrainian special services to recruit Russians and engage them in “sabotage and terrorist activities through deception and psychological manipulation.”
The F.S.B. said that it had detained 46 people, including minors, across Russia who had been recruited through the app and “committed armed attacks on law enforcement officers, set fire to transport, energy, communications, and credit and financial system facilities.”
Mr. Durov, who also regularly criticizes Western and other governments for what he says are their efforts to restrict internet freedom, did not directly comment on the charges. Shortly after they were announced, however, Telegram’s account on the social media site X posted an old image of him raising his middle finger.
Mr. Durov holds Emirati and French citizenship and permanently resides in Dubai. Before starting Telegram, he founded Vkontakte, a Russian equivalent of Facebook. In early 2014, he finalized a deal to sell his stake in Vkontakte, which then came under the control of a Kremlin-aligned company.
In 2024, Mr. Durov was arrested on arrival in France and later charged with facilitating criminal activity on Telegram. After being held in custody for four days, he was released and ordered to stay in France by the authorities there. His travel ban was later revoked.
In a statement at the time about the arrest in France, Mr. Durov said, “Claims in some media that Telegram is some sort of anarchic paradise are absolutely untrue.”
