Russia puts Telegram's Durov on global wanted list; GRAM slips 2.5% on the news

Russia's Federal Security Service said on Wednesday it has charged Telegram founder Pavel Durov with facilitating terrorist activity and placed him on an international wanted list. The FSB's public relations center said Durov was charged under Part 1.1 of Article 205.1 of the Russian criminal code, according to local news agency Interfax. The agency alleged that Telegram does not remove channels, chats and bots "actively used by Ukrainian special services, terrorist and extremist organizations" to prepare and coordinate sabotage, mass killings and cyber fraud in Russia, and said the consequences included deaths, among them women and children, and billions in material damage. A separate Sputnik report on July 29 carried the same charges.

Minutes after the announcement, the FSB said 46 Russians had been detained after allegedly being recruited by Ukraine through a Telegram dating bot. Soon after news of the charges broke, Telegram's account on X posted a photograph of Durov raising his middle finger, which The Moscow Times reported as a response to the warrant. Durov has not addressed Wednesday's charge directly. When the case was opened in February, he wrote on X that authorities "fabricate new pretexts" to restrict Russians' access to Telegram, calling it "a sad spectacle of a state afraid of its own people."

A Russian wanted-list entry is a domestic designation and does not compel other states to act; any Interpol notice would require a separate request and Interpol's own review. Durov has not lived in Russia since 2014 and is based in Dubai. AFP has reported that he holds at least four passports—Russian, French, Emirati and Saint Kitts and Nevis. Durov was indicted in France in 2024 over drug trafficking, organized fraud and child sexual abuse material on Telegram, and released under judicial supervision on a €5 million ($5.5 million) bond; French authorities later lifted travel restrictions, allowing him to leave the country. Durov denies wrongdoing and has called the French case "legally and logically absurd." Both cases rest on the same claim, that Telegram will not remove content or cooperate with investigators, brought by governments on opposite sides of the war in Ukraine.

Russia began restricting Telegram in August last year and has fined the platform 100 million rubles ($1.3 million) so far this year, mostly for failing to delete banned content, Interfax reported. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday that contacts over restoring the service continue, though Telegram's representatives were "not very active." The state has been promoting its own MAX messenger, which activists have dismissed as a "digital trap."

GRAM, the token formerly known as Toncoin and renamed in June after an 81% community vote, traded at $1.42 on Wednesday, down 2.5%, according to CoinGecko data. Telegram said earlier this month it would push a native, non-custodial GRAM wallet to more than a billion users, a rollout Durov called the largest in history; GRAM rose 7% on that announcement.