“Many people joke that the arrest of Pavel Durov is equivalent to arresting the head of the communications department of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. A lot of control over the military today is tied to Telegram,” Alexey Rogozin, an advisor to the State Duma (lower house of parliament) Committee on Economic Policy, Industry and Innovative Development, commented on August 25.

“As crazy as this may sound, intelligence transmissions, artillery deployments, helicopter video and many other activities are actually done very routinely using Telegram today,” the official added.

According to Mr. Rogozin, Telegram has now become one of the main tools for exchanging information in various fields, including military.

Despite the official ban on the use of mobile devices in areas of special military operations , Telegram is still actively used to transmit intelligence data, adjust artillery strikes, broadcast video from drones and other tasks related to command and control.

French police on August 24 arrested Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov at Paris-Le Bourget airport when his private plane from Azerbaijan landed in Paris.

According to French media, prosecutors in Paris plan to charge the 39-year-old with complicity in drug trafficking, child pornography and fraud. French authorities say Telegram’s inability to moderate content, its strong encryption tools and lack of cooperation with police have allowed criminals to thrive on the app.

The arrest has been met with harsh criticism from Russia. Moscow has demanded an immediate explanation from France for the move. Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council Dmitry Medvedev has warned that France could pay a heavy price for the arrest of the Telegram founder.

Meanwhile, Russian lawmaker Maria Butina, who served time in prison in the US on charges of being a Russian spy, accused Europe of trying to control Telegram.

“Pavel Durov is a political prisoner, a victim of the Western witch hunt. The arrest of Pavel Durov means that there is no freedom of speech, freedom of speech in Europe is dead,” Ms. Butina commented.

“They basically have a hostage now and they’re going to try to blackmail Russia, they’re going to try to blackmail all Telegram users and not only try to take control but try to block the network in Russia,” the former spy added.

The Russian Embassy in France has also called for consular access to Mr. Durov and demanded that his rights be guaranteed, according to Russian state news agency TASS . Russian diplomats are also in contact with Mr. Durov’s lawyer.

The Foreign Ministry, the Interior Ministry, the French police and the Paris prosecutor’s office have so far not commented.

Meanwhile, the former press secretary of Telegram’s boss, Georgy Loboushkin, suspected that France arrested Mr. Durov at the request of the United States.

“It’s a big mystery why he disregarded his own safety and decided to land in Paris. He was a rather cautious person,” Mr Loboushkin said.

According to Mr. Loboushkin, this Russian businessman certainly did not know that the West had prepared an arrest warrant for him.

“I think this action originated from the EU or from France. It is very possible that this is an American plan, they have been pursuing Pavel Durov for a long time, and Durov has always talked about it,” Loboushkin said.

In an interview in April, Durov said he was watched by law enforcement agencies whenever he traveled to the U.S. The Telegram founder accused U.S. intelligence of trying to recruit one of his employees to install a “backdoor” in the app, allowing them to spy on Telegram users.

Mr. Durov was born and raised in Russia. He left Russia in 2014 after losing control of his former social networking company, Vkontakte.

He refused to comply with government demands to block opposition groups on the platform and would not hand over data on Ukrainian protesters to security services. He moved to Dubai in 2017 and became a French citizen in August 2021.

Telegram is one of the world’s largest social platforms with nearly 1 billion users. The platform offers end-to-end encryption, effectively protects data from interception, and has a strong focus on privacy.