Russia uses Telegram boss Pavel Durov's case to rally doubters against West

Founder and CEO of Telegram Pavel Durov delivers a keynote speech during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain February 23, 2016. /Albert Gea/File Photo

MOSCOW - Russians who still share Western values are being told to choose sides and support their warring homeland or risk being victimised by the West, in the same way that Telegram boss Pavel Durov was supposedly victimised by being arrested in France.

The Russian-born tech entrepreneur, with his multiple passports and global ambitions for his messaging platform, was once idolised by cosmopolitan Russians who, before the Ukraine conflict, bet their future on ties with the West, working in multinational firms and travelling the globe.

After Moscow sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022, many lost their jobs as multinational businesses pulled out, and hundreds of thousands fled Russia to build a new life elsewhere.

But prominent Russian leaders have long told them that they made the wrong choice.

"This [Durov's detention] is the latest evidence that neutrality during a total world war is impossible for anyone to maintain," said philosopher Alexander Dugin, widely seen as one of the main ideologues of the Ukraine war.

"There are two irreconcilable worlds at odds with each other: us and them. And there is a chasm between us. Dual citizenships, blurred loyalties, manoeuvring between camps - all of this is in the past," Dugin said on Telegram.

"You are either with us or against us."

His remarks echo appeals to Russians who fled the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 by Soviet emissaries who tried to convince them to return home or become foreign agents for the NKVD secret police.

Durov, a 39-year-old billionaire based in Dubai, had been hailed at home as the Russian version of Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg or Amazon's Jeff Bezos. It is not clear whether or not he maintained links with the Kremlin.

But he is now under investigation in France for suspected complicity in running an online platform that allows illicit transactions, drug trafficking, images of child sex abuse and fraud.

Russia, where media are tightly controlled and dissenting voices are suppressed, says this gives the lie to Western assertions that free speech is sacrosanct.

A lawyer representing Durov said it was "absurd to say that a platform or its boss are responsible for any abuse" carried out on the platform, and that Telegram abided by European laws.

'DIFFERENT BLOOD'

Durov's critics in Russia now say that any Russian who falls for what they regard as "false" Western values could be victimised in the West, although France says his arrest stems from its independent judiciary and is therefore apolitical.

"He [Durov] is Russian, and therefore unpredictable and dangerous. Of different blood. Definitely not Musk or Zuckerberg," said Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian former president once regarded as pro-Western.

A video recorded by the late outspoken politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky when addressing Durov in 2018 went viral in Russia after his detention.

"A foreign land does not accept you, Pasha. Here at home, it's both more interesting and more fun," Zhirinovsky is heard saying in the video, using a diminutive of the name Pavel.

This view has been shared by many Russian Telegram users who have rallied around the flag of what has become known as "Fortress Russia" since the start of what the Kremlin calls its special military operation in Ukraine.

Members of the Russian public are regularly told by state media to view sympathisers with the West as potential traitors.

"This will be a good lesson for those kinds of people who are trying to sit on several chairs at once," said Irina, a Moscow resident who declined to be identified by her last name for fear of retribution.