Russia is demanding the arrest of the Telegram boss, accused of "complicity in terrorism"

Russia announced on Wednesday that it had launched an international search procedure against Telegram boss Pavel Durov, accusing him of "complicity in terrorism" and claiming that his messaging service is used by Ukrainian security services for recruitment purposes.

Born in Russia and holding French and Emirati passports, Pavel Durov, 41, has been under investigation in France since 2024, with Paris accusing him of failing to act against the dissemination of criminal content on Telegram.

In Russia, this messaging service is one of the most popular, used by ordinary citizens as well as public services, including the Kremlin, major ministries, and law enforcement.

On Wednesday, the Russian security services (FSB) indicated that they had issued "an international arrest warrant" for Pavel Durov, without specifying the nature of this warrant, nor whether other countries would accept it.

The billionaire is accused in Russia of "complicity in terrorism" as part of a "criminal investigation" into the recruitment of young Russians for sabotage activities by Ukrainian special services, the FSB said in a statement.

When contacted by AFP after this announcement, his French lawyers declined to comment at this time.

The FSB criticizes its messaging service Telegram for not removing a popular dating bot used, according to Moscow, by Ukrainian special services to train young Russians "in terrorist and sabotage activities".

According to the statement, 46 Russian citizens aged between 12 and 22, who used Leo Match Bot, which is banned in Russia, have been arrested since July 2025 in various Russian regions for assaulting members of law enforcement and sabotaging energy and transport infrastructure.

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They were all contacted on this bot by agents of the Ukrainian special services who posed as young girls in order to then pressure them into attacking police officers and setting fire to infrastructure sites, the FSB asserts.

Russia, which has been conducting a large-scale offensive in Ukraine since February 2022, has faced unprecedented digital restrictions for months, including restricting access to Telegram and another Western messaging service, WhatsApp.

These messaging services are accused of being used by Ukrainian services against the country's security.

Pavel Durov is an avowed libertarian, a champion of internet privacy, but controversial for his refusal to moderate any content on the Telegram messaging service he co-founded in 2013. Russian authorities had already tried to block it in 2018, before giving up.

After a spectacular arrest in France upon his arrival at the airport in August 2024, Pavel Durov, who became a French citizen in 2021, was indicted two years ago by the French justice system for a series of offences related to organised crime.

He is accused of failing to act against the unlawful use of his messaging service by his subscribers, in particular through a lack of moderation and cooperation with investigators.

In addition to a bail of 5 million euros, his judicial supervision initially prohibited him from travelling and required him to report to a police station every two weeks, but he obtained a relaxation of these conditions in 2025.

Initially, he obtained the lifting of the measures prohibiting him from traveling, allowing him to go to Dubai, where he settled, then, secondly, he obtained the lifting of the obligation to report to the police station in Nice (southeast France) and he is therefore no longer required to return to France every 14 days.

At the end of July, he claimed on his Telegram account that he had traveled to Georgia, a former Soviet republic in the Caucasus.