Pavel Durov, the owner of Telegram who is currently under house arrest in France, has launched a media campaign to rehabilitate his reputation following his arrest. This coincides with the publication of an investigation presenting evidence of his company’s links to the Russian security services, the FSB.
Pavel Durov has been arrested on charges for allowing Telegram to be used for terrorism, and drug and human trafficking despite repeated warnings by European authorities. However, the case is more complex given that Telegram is used an asset of the Russian state and Pavel Durov has cooperated with the Russian state to provide information of Telegram users to the Russian authorities.
Telegram is the main communications application used by the Russian army and also by Russian terrorists abroad who conduct sabotage attempts against European countries and elsewhere. It also used as an official propaganda channel for Russia in various countries especially in Africa.
In an interview with Tucker Carlson, Pavel repeated a series of lies and untruths in his attempt to launder his image. He siad that Telegram doesn’t sell information of its users to third-parties.
Telegram actually harvests data on users and hands it over to the FSB, mainly thanks to a software developer who actually specialises in this role: Vladimir Vedeneev. An extensive investigation by the OCCRP has revealed that Vladimir Vedeneev, who built Telegram’s technical infrastructure and owns a company called “Global Network Management”, is mainly responsible for harvesting data through surveillance technology and selling it to the FSB.
It was already known that Telegram hands over users’ information to the Russian authorities. Pavel Durov also has a reputation of inventing stories and making things up to justify his actions. One example of his lies is that he had to flee Russia in exile. Pavel Durov visited Russia regularly and retained a good relationship with Vladimir Putin before he was arrested by French authorities.
Pavel Durov was recently interviewed by Tucker Carlson just on time as the investigation by the OCCRP was published outing his platform as a Russian intelligence asset.
Newsroom
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