Pavel Durov sends defiant message as Russian authorities move to ban Telegram
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Telegram founder Pavel Durov urged “Russian brothers and sisters” to return to “digital resistance” in the face of Moscow’s attempts to block the popular messenger. Durov’s call comes amid mounting reports of outages in the past weeks coming from many corners of the huge country, which has intensified efforts to cut access to the platform. 65 million Russians still use Telegram daily, Durov says Millions of Russian citizens continue to communicate through Telegram despite their government’s push to prevent them from doing so, the app’s owner unveiled. Durov made the claim in reaction to the blocking of the messenger over non-compliance with Russia’s rules, mainly over alleged failures to delete information prohibited by local law. In a post on Saturday, the tech entrepreneur remarked: “Telegram was banned in Russia — yet 65M Russians still use it daily via VPNs, with 50M+ sending messages every day.” He also reminded that Russian authorities have been trying to ban VPN (virtual private network) services for years as well. “Their blocking attempts just triggered a massive banking failure — cash briefly became the only payment method nationwide yesterday,” Durov also revealed. He likened the recent developments in Russia to Iran’s earlier attempt to ban Telegram and recalled: “The government hoped for mass adoption of its surveillance messaging apps but got mass adoption of VPNs instead.” According to Pavel Durov, who was born in Russia but is now a French-Emirati citizen, millions of Russians are now joining millions of Iranians in opposing state censorship. He turned to them: “Welcome back to the Digital Resistance, my Russian brothers and sisters. The entire nation is now mobilized to bypass these absurd restrictions. Thousands are building VPNs and proxies.” Durov, also the chief executive of the messaging service, vowed that Telegram will keep adapting and making its traffic…
Filed under: News - @ April 4, 2026 12:13 pm