‘He just decided not to tell anyone?’ Telegram founder Pavel Durov says he suspects he was poisoned in 2018. Not everyone believes him.
In a recent interview with American podcaster Lex Fridman, Russian-born billionaire and Telegram founder Pavel Durov made a striking claim: he believes he was poisoned in 2018. Durov said he chose not to speak out at the time in order to avoid alarming investors, and described experiencing severe symptoms similar to those reported by the late Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny in 2020. However, Durov has not provided any evidence to support his account, and some public figures have already voiced skepticism. Here’s what they had to say.
In a rare in-depth interview with podcaster Lex Fridman released on Tuesday, Pavel Durov, founder of the Telegram messaging app, said that he believes he was the target of a poisoning attempt in 2018. “That was the only instant in my life when I thought I was dying,” the billionaire said. He went on to describe feeling pain throughout his body, loss of eyesight and hearing, difficulty breathing, and other symptoms. Ultimately, he said, he collapsed on he floor and woke up only the following day. He claimed that he couldn’t walk for two weeks afterward.
Durov didn’t speculate much about why he may have been poisoned, though the timing of the alleged incident coincides with the Russian authorities’ ban and attempted blocking of Telegram. He mentioned that he didn’t tell anybody about the incident because he “didn’t want people to freak out” at a time when he was pursuing investors for a new project.
The poisoning claim quickly became one of the most-quoted moments of the nearly four-hour interview. Almost immediately, however, Russian public figures began questioning his story.
Writing on X, Russian journalist Dmitry Kolezev laid out his unanswered questions about the incident:
So, someone tried to poison him, and he just decided not to tell anyone? Didn’t even go to the police? No investigation? And he chose not to tell his colleagues at the company because he didn’t want to scare them? Did he at least go to the hospital? He says he stayed home for two weeks, but there’s no mention of doctors, hospitals, or the police in his account.
He also pointed to the fact that Durov continued traveling to Russia in the years that followed. “And now he decides to go public with this story, just when he’s being accused of possibly cooperating with the FSB and the Russian authorities?” Kolezev asked rhetorically.
Political analyst Fedor Krasheninnikov was even more skeptical. “I don’t believe Pavel Durov was poisoned,” he wrote.
The symptoms he describes sound like a detailed retelling of what [late opposition politician Alexey] Navalny said he experienced. But there’s a key difference: Navalny, who actually survived a Novichok poisoning and also lost consciousness at some point, ended up in a hospital, where doctors worked to save him.
Krasheninnikov emphasized that it seems unlikely Durov would experience such severe symptoms and yet survive with no medical intervention.
Journalist Christo Grozev, who worked with Navalny in 2020 to investigate his poisoning by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) and identify the agents responsible, also commented on Durov’s account. Though he stopped short of expressing skepticism, he asked Durov to let him investigate the incident:
Former Navalny associate Lyubov Sobol echoed Grozev’s request, calling it “incredibly important” for Durov to allow an investigation. “[It’s important] not just for Pavel Durov, his loved ones, and his team, but for society as a whole. Silence is what allows the Chekists to stay in the shadows and keep carrying out poisonings and murders,” she said.
