Russian officials and propagandists are instructed to delete Telegram correspondence. So-called war correspondents are panicking. And, as if on cue, Kremlin proxies in the West, from Elon Musk to Edward Snowden, are spouting scathing tirades about the supposed violation of freedom of speech. And all because of the detention of one man in Paris. What makes Pavel Durov, the founder of Telegram, so important, and why has his arrest in France provoked such a stormy reaction?
After Durov flew to Paris on a private jet from Azerbaijan, a scenario other than what happened could hardly have been expected. And not just because Durov departed from Baku, where he was visiting at the same time as Russian President Vladimir Putin, as it is not even clear whether they met.
Maybe that is not the most important thing. Durov, a 39-year-old Russian businessman who mysteriously acquired French citizenship in 2021, was already on France’s wanted list. His arrest warrant was issued by a domestic court due to an “ongoing preliminary investigation”, the details of which are not yet public.
But the French media are already reporting that Durov could not have been unaware of the threat of detention as well as of the charges – the Telegram founder and the app’s administration have repeatedly refused to co-operate with French officials in the investigation, which could now see him charged with terrorism, drugs, fraud, money laundering, the sale of stolen goods and the sexual abuse of minors.
The reactions of Russian government officials and propagandists, both at home and as Kremlin sympathisers abroad, should not be surprising. The faux surprise and wistful lamentations about alleged violations of human rights obscure the real reasons for the hysteria: Telegram has become a convenient tool for the Kremlin regime, its proxies, even the army.
And now, suddenly, all of this – correspondence, other information – is threatened, because under pressure from French law enforcement (and intelligence services), Durov might speak out, give access to what was supposed to be secret or under the control of the Kremlin alone. To what extent are such fears justified? Crime on Telegram
The mere fact that Durov could technically have expected such a sequence of events and still decided to fly to France may raise suspicions that this story is not as simple as it seems at first sight.
The French media quickly announced that the charges of “terrorism, drugs, fraud, money laundering, sale of stolen goods and sexual abuse of minors” were based on Telegram’s failure to monitor content. The app’s administration refuses to cooperate with officials.
Anyone who uses Telegram, and especially those who follow Russian bloggers, knows that the content they produce – written, video and other information – is often a treasure box for open source intelligence. But it has a dark side. Posts related to arms trafficking, cryptocurrency, pornographic content, and especially violent posts glorifying terrorist activities are commonplace, and they are a source of income for channel operators. Unlike other social networks, Telegram turns a blind eye to such content.
As a result, French law enforcement authorities consider Durov to be an accomplice in the crimes committed via the Telegram app. And since he is a French citizen, having mysteriously acquired this nationality in August 2021, ahead of the Kremlin’s open aggression against Ukraine, he was detained by officials in Paris who did not have to provide explanations to the Russian embassy. Durov himself was obliged to give an explanation but did not do so, so the formal reason for his detention was obvious.
If the founder of Telegram knew that he was under investigation but flew to France anyway, then the theory that he flew to make a deal is reasonable. The only question is what exactly and with whom to negotiate under the guise of the spectacle of detention – with the French, with their partners in other Nato countries? In any case, the fears of a deal are fuelled by the particularly telling nervous reactions of Russia and its enablers. Freedom of speech
Russian officials and politicians can express their concern, wonder or scream about the alleged violation of freedom of expression as much as they like, like Edward Snowden, who fled to Russia, or Elon Musk himself, but the obvious similarities raise questions.
Despite the victim image he initially created, former US intelligence officer Snowden is no defender of freedom of expression, having first passed on US secrets to Russian intelligence and then taken refuge in Moscow, where he has become, at the very least, a face repeating the regime’s narrative.
Musk, the controversial entrepreneur who owns Tesla, SpaceX and social network X, rushed to Durov’s defence, but was publicly reminded, as a supposed defender of absolute freedom of speech, that when he took over Twitter, between October 2022 and April 2023, 83% of requests to censor content had been granted. This was reported by the Spanish paper El Pais, based on a study by Rest of the World, data from X and Lumen Database.
What is more, it has recently emerged that Musk acquired Twitter with the help of two Russian oligarchs close to the Kremlin regime – Pyotr Aven and Vadim Moshkovich, who are considered to be Putin’s wallets. The Kremlin’s influence on Musk, whose narratives are strangely aligned with Russia’s, as well as Musk’s anti-Ukrainian stance, has been talked about for some time. This time is no exception.
As soon as the news of Durov’s arrest broke, the Russian embassy in Paris accused the French authorities of “uncooperative behaviour”. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova even recalled how, in 2018, a group of 26 NGOs, including Amnesty International, Freedom House, Reporters Without Borders and others, condemned Russia’s decision to block Telegram. In reality, the “blocking” was just a public relations exercise – Telegram continues to be used successfully by millions of Russians in Russia and beyond. Financial operations
However, attempts to portray Durov’s detention as an alleged gift to Putin, who is just waiting for an opportunity to mock the West’s celebrated freedom of speech, are a distraction from the main point. Putin is already running out of opportunities to manipulate the West, both directly and its perceived or real image.
The fact that Telegram offers text, voice and video messaging, as well as video and audio calling, live streaming, groups and chat channels, means that Telegram’s versatility is widely applicable.
For example, French officials are concerned about the use of tools such as cryptocurrencies and unique numbers on the unmonitored platform. Yekaterina Mizulina, a Russian public figure, head of the Safe Internet League, called by some “not the sharpest knife in the drawer” and even Putin’s lover, said that “The arrest of Mr Durov is a blow to the TON cryptocurrency, which is used by many Russian business people”.
Given the dirty deals of oligarchs linked to the regime, the concealment of Russian money, the movement of money in the West and elsewhere, it is no wonder that officials and businessmen are called on to delete official correspondence. Even Russian propagandist Margarita Simonyan has called on all those “who have become accustomed to using the Telegram application for secret conversations and correspondence to delete those correspondences immediately and not to do so again”.
And these calls are not just about cryptocurrencies or other transactions. Russian propagandists, politicians and active supporters of the Kremlin see Telegram as one of their most important platforms for the dissemination of revenue-generating content – even without illegal activities. Tool for army and intelligence
Another possible reason for the hysteria in Russia is that Telegram is one of the most important, if not the most important, means of communication for the Russian intelligence services, and especially for the army, for different purposes.
Despite the alleged blocking in 2018 and the relocation of Durov’s business to Dubai, the Russian military uses Telegram for correspondence, data collection, analysis, even operational planning – the user-friendly Telegram is used in part because the Russian army does not have any viable alternatives. Data exchange is simply indispensable in modern warfare, where it has to be done quickly, in real time and in a secure way, i.e. via encrypted communication, closed channels.
The Russian army has hardly invested in such systems, and the use of mobile phones still takes place despite various bans imposed by the authorities. The fear that even basic information on the personal data of Russian military personnel, their correspondence, photos, videos, even if outdated, will fall into the hands of the intelligence of France or another Nato country, is now spreading like a virus. Whether it is the footage of Russian war crimes, or the betrayal of their tactics, procedures and locations, everything is under real or perceived threat.
The Russian intelligence services should be equally worried – both the SVR and the GRU, which in recent years have increasingly relied on foreign recruits, even citizens of other countries, who are entrusted with initially simple, for example, provocative operations, such as the smearing of monuments and similar actions, and who are eventually selected for more sophisticated provocations, surveillance tasks.
Such individuals are recruited and contacted mainly through closed Telegram channels. Even if the risk of revealed information is only a possibility, some of the operations prepared, under way or planned by the Russian intelligence services may be exposed, which means at the very least lost work and burnt bridges, if not the exposure of the GRU and SVR agents themselves.
Finally, the last version of why it is France that has taken this step is that it is, after all, a warning to the Kremlin and a compulsion to consider and wonder what it has actually managed to extract from Durov. After all, the intelligence services of France, as well as those of other countries, have been able for some time to get a good picture of the groups operating on Telegram, their content, the information they gather there, and of Durov himself, and there may be many reasons to arrest him and put him behind bars for years.
But the detention could also send a message to the Kremlin: we know, we see, we hear. Your intelligence and sabotage operations, which have recently been seen in Europe, such as cyber-attacks, provocations, the smearing of monuments, the arson attacks, all coordinated through Telegram channels, are in the plain view. In the end, there will be a heavy price to pay.
Lithuanian website views causes of Telegram founder’s arrest
