Russia has issued an international arrest warrant for Telegram founder and chief executive Pavel Durov over accusations that the app is used by Ukraine secret services and for criminal activity.
The Russian internal security service, the FSB, said Telegram’s administration had failed to remove “numerous channels, chats and bots” that are “actively used by Ukrainian intelligence agencies, terrorist, and extremist organisations to prepare and coordinate acts of sabotage and terrorism, mass murder, and cyberfraud” in Russia.
Telegram founder and chief executive Pavel Durov. Image credit: Pavel Durov
‘Sabotage’
It said Ukraine security services used a popular dating chatbot on Telegram to lure and recruit Russians for “sabotage and terrorist activities” and that 46 users of the chatbot, aged 12 to 22, have been detained across Russia since July 2025 for assaulting law enforcement officers, arson and other acts.
