French President Emmanuel Macron had lunch with Telegram CEO Pavel Durov in 2018, and tried to persuade him to move his headquarters to Paris, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on Aug. 28.
According to the outlet, the meeting occurred a year after French intelligence services, in a joint operation with the United Arab Emirates (UAE), hacked Durov's phone over concerns his app was being used by Islamic State to organize terror attacks.
Durov was arrested at Le Bourget airport on the outskirts of Paris on Aug. 24 after landing in his private jet. Born in St. Petersburg, Durov obtained French citizenship in 2021 but is believed to live in Dubai.
He faces 12 charges from the French authorities, including crimes related to child pornography, drug trafficking, money laundering, and withholding crucial information from investigators.
The WSJ says there is no indication that Durov's meeting with Macron and the hacking of his phone is linked to his recent arrest, but the revelations shed light on the years-long and tumultuous relationship between him and French authorities.
Durov, who has a net worth estimated at $15.5 billion, left Russia in 2014 after refusing to comply with government demands to shut down opposition communities on Russian social media platform VK, which he subsequently sold.
Durov has claimed he is a pariah and has been effectively exiled from Russia, but on Aug. 27, it was reported he had visited Russia over 60 times since leaving the country, according to Kremlingram, a Ukrainian group that campaigns against the use of Telegram in Ukraine.
Kremlingram was anonymously sent a spreadsheet in December 2023 with data on Durov's crossings of the Russian border between 2015 and 2021.
"We could not confirm the authenticity of this data for a long time," Kremlingram said, but a recent leak of a large FSB database, published by independent Russian media outlet Meduza, corroborated the data.
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The FSB data leak "completely coincides with one of the entries in the letter we received, which contains a total of 125 entries of Pavel's entry and exit to Russia," Kremlingram said.
Durov's "relationship with the Russian authorities in 2015-2021 was good enough that he was not afraid of being detained while crossing the border," Kremlingram noted.
After his arrest in France, the Russian Embassy in Paris said they had asked for consular access to Durov. "The French side has so far avoided cooperation on this issue," the Russian Embassy claimed on Aug. 25.
The statements of the Russian authorities indicate that Durov "also has a valid Russian passport," Kremlingram said, despite his claims that "he was no longer a Russian entrepreneur and had dual citizenship in France and the UAE."
Telegram remains one of the most popular social media platforms among Ukrainians. A September 2023 poll by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology indicated that 44% of Ukrainians use Telegram to receive information and news.
Telegram is also widely used by Ukrainian officials and various government bodies, against the advice of Ukraine's TV and radio-broadcasting body.
Martin Fornusek
