The Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation has filed a lawsuit with the Supreme Court demanding that the Telegram messenger be recognized as an extremist organization and its activities be completely banned in Russia. Earlier, the FSB put the platform’s founder, Pavel Durov, on the international wanted list on charges of aiding terrorism.
The Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation has filed a lawsuit with the Supreme Court demanding that the Telegram messenger be recognized as an extremist organization and its activities be completely banned in Russia. Earlier, the FSB put the platform’s founder, Pavel Durov, on the international wanted list on charges of aiding terrorism.
This is reported by Russian media. According to an official statement by the FSB, the messenger is allegedly actively used by Ukrainian special services to prepare sabotage, mass murders, and cyber fraud, which has caused «numerous human casualties and multi-billion dollar material losses».
The law enforcement agencies of the aggressor country also announced the recruitment of teenagers through the popular dating service «Daivinchik/Leo». However, there were significant discrepancies in the statements of the special services: the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation reported the initiation of cases against 19 detained minors and did not mention Durov at all, while the FSB reported the detention of 46 people. At the same time, the «Daivinchik» communities continue to function in the Russian social networks VK and MAX, to which local security forces have not made any complaints.
Pavel Durov himself has not officially commented on the accusations. However, a few hours after the FSB publications, he updated his avatar on his channel, posting a meme image that went viral in 2017, where his face is superimposed on a photo of a militant. A few hours later, he changed his avatar again to a stylized image of his face.
This is not the first attempt by Russian authorities to restrict access to the service. Roskomnadzor previously tried to block Telegram for refusing to provide keys to decrypt users' messages. At that time, blocking attempts led to large-scale disruptions in the work of Russian state websites and third-party services, after which the Russian authorities were forced to officially lift their restrictions.
In April of this year, the Telegram blocking rate in Russia approached 100%. Meanwhile, Durov stated that despite the blocking of Telegram in the Russian Federation, more than 50 million Russians use it daily.
