Russia Opens Criminal Case Against Telegram Founder Pavel Durov for 'Aiding Terrorism'

States have periodically seized control of new communications media—Tsar Alexander II nationalised Russia’s telegraph network in 1866; the U.S. forced AT&T’s 1918 wartime takeover; China built its Great Firewall in the 2000s. Moscow’s 2026 move fits that long arc of governments pursuing ‘sovereign networks’ whenever outside channels threaten political monopoly, especially during conflict (Russia-Ukraine war). Unlike the failed 2018 Telegram ban, today the Kremlin couples criminal charges, bandwidth throttling and a domestic substitute (Max), mirroring China’s WeChat strategy and Iran’s 2023 crackdown on Signal. Over a 100-year horizon, this episode signals accelerating balkanisation of the internet: encryption is colliding with security states, private platforms with digital sovereignty. Whether consumers accept Max or continue cat-and-mouse circumvention will shape not just Russian information space but the precedent for how future states may criminalise platform founders to domesticate global networks.