Pavel Durov, the maverick Russian-born founder of the encrypted messaging app, Telegram, has been thrown into the limelight after he was unexpectedly arrested on Saturday upon landing at an airport in Paris.
French prosecutors said yesterday that the move is part of an ongoing cybercrime probe into child pornography, drug trafficking and fraudulent transactions on the platform. Meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Macron – who is allegedly an avid user of the app – insisted that Durov’s arrest on French soil is part of an independent investigation and was “in no way a political decision”.
Political or otherwise, it has drawn attention to 39-year-old Durov and his creation. The Russian tech billionaire and businessman, who also holds citizenship in the UAE, France and Saint Kitts and Nevis, is generally deemed a reclusive character. In rare interviews he has made some unusual revelations about his lifestyle, including the fact that he went a month without eating food in 2019 to allow him to “come up with new ideas” and has 100 biological children thanks to his sperm donations.
Durov first gained recognition in 2006 after founding Vkontakte (VK) – seen to be a Russian equivalent to Facebook. Hence why he is sometimes labelled Moscow’s Mark Zuckerberg. In 2014, following anti-Kremlin protests organised on Vkontakte, Durov refused to comply with Russian state requests for control over the company, hastily sold his shares and fled to the UAE.
While in self-imposed exile, he continued to work on Telegram, an app that he had launched the year before with his brother, Nikolai, growing it to almost one billion users by 2024, making it the world’s fourth most popular messaging platform. Countries in which Telegram is especially widely used include India, Russia, Indonesia and the US.
Telegram’s use of encryption has allowed the site to become heralded as a platform for free speech. Its monitoring of user activity is less stringent than other competitors. This has led to the app being used by Islamic state terrorist groups and during the recent riots in the UK, where information was spread via Telegram. Following a stabbing in Southport, rioters were able to use channels to arrange demonstrations, despite the app stating that “calls for violence” are banned.
Durov’s arrest is also controversial as Telegram is used extensively by the Russian military. While the app was banned in 2018 after Durov denied requests to provide user data to the state, the ban was overturned in 2020 and the app has subsequently been downloaded 100 million times in Russia alone.
Due to the absence of a secure military communications site, many Russian troops fighting in Ukraine have grown to rely on Telegram in their day-to-day operations. The idea that this arrest was made to potentially hinder the Russian military is circulating around state broadcast channels, hence the accusation levelled at Macron that this was a politically motivated arrest.
Russian pro-military bloggers on personal Telegram channels even worry that Durov may hand over the keys to the encryption which would allow access to all previously protected messages.
Durov’s arrest may increase the Kremlin‘s efforts to create a personalised military encryption service, instead of relying upon messaging apps. While this could have the beneficial effect of improving military communication in the long run, in the short term, it gives Moscow another problem that distracts from the war.
Telegram is also used in Ukraine; Zelensky, for instance, posts his daily evening addresses on the app. However, the app doesn’t have the same military significance to Kyiv, since Ukrainians tend to rely much more heavily on the communications network, Signal.
As of recent reports, Durov is still detained by the French authorities. He can be held for a maximum of 96 hours, until Wednesday evening, for questioning. After this, he must either be charged or released.
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