Russia's main security agency, called the FSB, charged Telegram founder Pavel Durov on July 29, 2026, with helping terrorism. The FSB also issued an international arrest warrant, which is a formal request to other countries to hand someone over. Multiple news outlets reported the story the same day (Reuters; Deutsche Welle; BBC; The Moscow Times).

The FSB said that Ukraine's spy services had been using Telegram to recruit people and plan sabotage and terror attacks inside Russia. The agency said Telegram did not remove the channels, chats, and bots (automated programs that run inside the app) that Ukraine was using, even though the FSB says the platform was helping these operations (BBC).

Durov was born in Russia but has lived outside the country for many years. He has passports from France and the United Arab Emirates. It is unclear whether other countries would actually follow Russia's arrest warrant (BBC).

After the charge was announced, Telegram's account on X posted an image of Durov holding up his middle finger (BBC). Durov has previously accused Russian authorities of "fabricating new pretexts to restrict Russians' access to Telegram" (BBC).

Telegram is very popular in Russia, with tens of millions of users there. The app has more than 1 billion users around the world (Reuters). Russian authorities have been limiting people's access to the platform as part of a wider crackdown on internet freedom (BBC).

This is not the first time Durov has faced legal trouble over Telegram. He was arrested at an airport near Paris in August 2024 (Deutsche Welle; Reuters). French judges later charged him for allegedly allowing criminal activity on the platform because Telegram did not do enough to monitor and remove harmful content posted by users (Deutsche Welle; Deutsche Welle).

Durov's lawyer said in August 2024 that it was "absurd" to suggest Durov should be held responsible for crimes committed on the Telegram app (Reuters). French President Emmanuel Macron said there was "no political motive" behind the arrest (Deutsche Welle) and also defended his decision to give Durov French citizenship (Deutsche Welle).

Russia's own history with Telegram has been complicated. The platform was briefly blocked in Russia in 2018 after Durov refused to give the FSB the encryption keys — the digital codes that would let the government read people's private messages. That ban was quietly lifted in 2020 when authorities admitted it did not actually work. The current restrictions described by the BBC use a different approach: slowing down access to the app rather than trying to block it entirely, as part of broader controls on the internet.

The bigger picture here is that two countries are now pursuing legal cases against Durov at the same time. France's case, started in 2024, focuses on criminal activity that weak content monitoring may have allowed. Russia's case, opened in 2026, is framed around national security and fighting terrorism, with the FSB connecting Telegram directly to the Russia-Ukraine war.

It is also unclear whether Russia's arrest warrant can actually be enforced. Durov is a French citizen, and France has its own legal case against him. Whether France would agree to hand him over to Russia — especially since the request comes from the FSB, an intelligence agency rather than a regular police force — is an open question. The BBC noted that international police channels, treaties between countries, and political considerations would all play a role.

By linking Telegram to Ukrainian sabotage operations inside Russia, the FSB has turned what might otherwise be a dispute about content moderation into a terrorism charge under Russian criminal law. That carries far more serious potential penalties than the French charges and puts the case inside Russia's wartime legal system.