PANews reported on August 28 that according to Cointelegraph, the Russian independent news agency "Important Stories" reported that Telegram co-founder and CEO Pavel Durov entered Russia more than 50 times between 2015 and 2021. The report cited data about Durov's whereabouts leaked by Russia's main intelligence agency, the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB). The data was reportedly leaked around August 20 and hidden again on August 26. Important Stories said it partially verified the data by talking to investigators under Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
Durov reportedly made no attempt to conceal his travels, having taken commercial Russian airline flights between St. Petersburg, Russia, and various European cities, as well as Russian Railways trains from Russia to Helsinki, Finland. Pavel Durov is from Russia and co-founded the Russian social network VKontakte in 2006. In 2014, Durov refused to comply with the Russian Federal Security Service's request to disclose the personal data of Ukrainian protesters, and subsequently resigned as CEO and sold his 12% stake to Ivan Tavrin, CEO of telecommunications company MegaFon. Durov left Russia in April 2014, and his only public visit to Russia was in the fall of 2014, when he returned for a few days to sell his data center ICVA Ltd. Durov traveled to Russia several times between 2015 and 2017 and between 2020 and 2021, with the only period without travel to Russia being between 2018 and 2020. In an interview with Tucker Carlson in April, Durov claimed that he would not travel to places that did not align with Telegram's values, including Russia.
Durov was arrested in France on August 24. He was accused of failing to adequately police illegal activity on the messaging platform, which French authorities claim is used for drug trafficking, fraud and organized crime.