Pavel Durov Added to Russia's List of Terrorists and Extremists

Rosfinmonitoring has added Telegram co-founder Pavel Durov to its list of terrorists and extremists, TASS reports.

"Durov, Pavel Valerievich, born October 10, 1984, in Leningrad," the statement reads.

Durov has been charged in Russia with aiding terrorist activity as part of a criminal investigation, and an international search has been initiated.

According to the FSB, in violation of Russian law, Telegram's administration failed to delete numerous channels, chats, and bots on the messenger, which are actively used by Ukrainian intelligence agencies, terrorist, and extremist organizations to prepare and coordinate terrorist attacks, mass murders, and fraudulent activities in Russia. Since 2022, 153,000 crimes committed using Telegram have been registered in Russia, including the Crocus City Hall terrorist attack, the murders of Daria Dugina, Maxim Fomin (Vladlen Tatarsky), and nine high-ranking military officials, including Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, head of the NBC Defense Forces.

Roskomnadzor previously sent over 150,000 requests to Durov's team demanding the removal of illegal content, but these were ignored.