MOSCOW, July 29. /TASS/. Telegram co-founder Pavel Durov has been charged with facilitating terrorist activities, and procedures for declaring him internationally wanted have been launched, Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said on Wednesday.

"Telegram administration head Pavel Durov has been charged <…> (with facilitating terrorist activities) as part of a criminal case under investigation, and an international warrant for his arrest has been issued," the FSB specified in a statement.

According to it, "in violation of Russian law, the Telegram administration <…> has failed to delete multiple channels, chats and bots that have been actively used by Ukrainian special services and terrorist and extremist organizations in plotting and orchestrating in Russia subversive and terrorist acts, mass killings, and cybercrime affecting numerous people, including women and children, and causing billions of rubles worth of financial damage."

In February, the Rossiyskaya Gazeta newspaper reported, citing materials from the FSB, that Durov’s actions were under investigation as part of a criminal case on terrorism facilitation. According to the publication, over 153,000 crimes committed using Telegram have been recorded since 2022 in Russia. Among them were the March 2024 attack on Crocus City Hall, and the assassination of Russian bloggers and journalists Darya Dugina and Maxim Fomin, better known as Vladlen Tatarsky, and nine high-ranking military officials, including head of Russia’s radiation, chemical and biological protection forces Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov. Also, explosions and arsons at military recruitment centers have been organized via the messenger. The FSB has thwarted 475 terrorist acts orchestrated through Telegram, including 61 mass killings by teens in schools. Also, around 700 direct threats have been posed to families of Russian military servicemen on Telegram, the newspaper wrote.

Russia’s telecom watchdog Roskomnadzor has sent more than 150,000 requests asking the Durov team to remove unlawful content but those requests have largely been ignored.