Russia accuses Telegram founder Pavel Durov of aiding terrorism: what the FSB alleges, why two agencies report different numbers, and what it means for Russians still using the app

Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) has accused Telegram founder Pavel Durov of aiding terrorism. The agency’s public relations center said Durov “is being placed on an international wanted list.” According to the FSB, Telegram’s administration refuses to delete channels that Ukrainian intelligence services use to prepare sabotage, cyberfraud, and mass murder — actions the agency says have caused “numerous human casualties,” including among women and children, and “material damage in the billions.” The relevant provision of the Criminal Code (Part 1.1 of Article 205.1) carries a sentence of up to life in prison.

At the same time, Russia’s Investigative Committee said Ukrainian intelligence services are recruiting teenagers through the “Daivinchik/Leo” chatbot. The committee reported that 19 teenagers had been detained across a number of Russian regions after being “drawn by officers of Ukrainian intelligence services into committing crimes using the service.” It said it had opened criminal cases under five separate statutes, including aiding terrorism, but its press release made no mention of Durov at all. The FSB also reported mass detentions — but put the figure at 46 people, not 19, as the Investigative Committee had said.

“Leonardo Daivinchik” is a popular channel and chatbot with millions of subscribers, used mostly by young people looking to meet someone new. Besides Telegram, communities under the “Daivinchik” name also exist on the Russian social network VK and on Max, the state-backed messaging app, though nothing is known of any complaints by the authorities about those platforms.

Durov himself has not directly commented on the allegations. A few hours after the FSB’s press release, he changed his channel avatar to a photo of himself in the guise of a terrorist; the Telegram channel of Georgy Lobushkin, who was VK’s press secretary when Durov ran the company, was the first to notice. The image, with Durov’s face superimposed on a photo of an Islamic State militant, had gone viral in 2017. Durov soon swapped the avatar again, this time for a plain photo of his face. No one from Telegram’s administration or Durov’s lawyers made any statement either. Telegram’s official account on X, meanwhile, posted a well-known photo of Durov giving the camera his middle finger — the same image he put up in 2011, as VK’s chief executive, in response to rumors that Mail.ru Group wanted to buy the social network.

Durov is also under investigation in a French criminal case that has been open since 2024. French authorities accuse him of complicity in distributing hacking software and child pornography, along with money laundering — accusations that stem from Telegram’s refusal to respond to law enforcement requests. Since the case opened, Telegram’s administration has stepped up its blocking of channels with potentially illegal content, and Durov has regularly criticized French and European Union authorities on a range of issues. Those statements are widely quoted by pro-Kremlin Russian media.

Telegram has effectively been blocked in Russia since the summer of 2025, and from the start of 2026 the blocks became widespread, leaving the app all but unusable without a VPN. Russian authorities justify their actions by pointing to Telegram’s unwillingness to fight fraud and remove content they consider illegal. On July 27 — just two days before the charges against Durov — Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, said the authorities were continuing to contact Telegram’s administration but had seen no active reciprocal steps from the company.

The charges against Durov do not make using Telegram a crime, Russian state media say. TASS, the state news agency, published a note carrying a comment from a lawyer, Timur Chanyshev, who said: “The mere fact that charges have been brought against Pavel Durov does not mean the messenger is banned.” The note stressed that “merely having an account or running a channel does not constitute aiding terrorist activity,” and that criminal liability arises only for specific illegal acts carried out through an account or a channel.

Unofficial reports of a criminal case against Durov surfaced as early as February. Rossiyskaya Gazeta, the Russian government’s official newspaper, and Komsomolskaya Pravda, a pro-Kremlin tabloid, ran similar stories the same day accusing Telegram of turning a blind eye to “radicals, drug addicts, murderers, and terrorists.” Citing sources, the authors reported that a case had been opened against Durov for aiding terrorism. Durov himself then announced it. “A sad spectacle of a state afraid of its own people,” he wrote. There were no official statements from the authorities on the matter at the time.