The actions of Pavel Durov, the founder of the Telegram messenger, are being investigated as part of a criminal case under the article of the Russian Criminal Code on “promoting terrorist activity”. This was reported on 24 February by state publications with reference to the Russian Federal Security Service.
An article in the official Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspaper said that “the illusion of anonymity has led to an army of radicals, drug addicts, murderers and terrorists on messenger, which has begun to form a threat to our society.”
According to Komsomolskaya Pravda, the Telegram administration has failed to comply with Roskomnadzor’s demands and has not removed thousands of channels, chat rooms and bots related to child pornography, drugs, suicide and the involvement of minors in illegal activities. More than 10,000 channels with calls to extremism and related to “financing the enemy” have also not been removed.
Among the crimes that, according to the authors, were committed using the messenger, the terrorist attack in Crocus City Hall was named, as well as the murders of Daria Dugina and General Igor Kirillov. The publications also claimed that under the conditions of the “SWO” (Russian abbreviation for the large-scale invasion of Ukraine – ed.) Telegram “became the main tool of the special services of NATO countries” and “the Kiev regime”.
On 10 February, Russia’s telecommunications watchdog, Roskomnadzor, announced plans for the following “successive restrictions” on the work of the messenger Telegram, which, as the agency notes, does not comply with Russian law.
Earlier it became known about new complaints from Russian users about problems in the work of Telegram. This was reported with reference to the data of services Downdetector and “Failure.rf”.
In October 2025, failures in the work of Telegram and WhatsApp continued for several days. Roskomnadzor said at the time that measures were underway to “partially restrict” the work of WhatsApp and Telegram to “counteract criminals”.
FSB investigates actions of Telegram founder under article on “facilitation of terrorist activity” – Russian state media