Russia puts Pavel Durov on its terrorist and extremist list, but Telegram payments and Gram trading are still open for now

Russian authorities have added Pavel Durov to Rosfinmonitoring’s list of terrorists and extremists, and GMT Legal says that, for now, this does not block Russians from buying Telegram Stars, paying for Premium, using Telegram’s crypto wallet, or trading Gram (Toncoin). For PSPs and high-risk merchants, the detail that matters is simple: the restrictions currently target Durov personally, not Telegram as the operating company.

1. Dennis Polyakov, head of the “Digital Economy” practice at GMT Legal, told Bits.media that “there are no problems from such purchases yet,” because the terrorist/extremist designation applies only to Durov, not to Telegram’s operator company.
2. Rosfinmonitoring said the same thing in plain terms: the restrictions against Durov do not extend to Telegram as a legal entity. That means the platform’s commercial and in-app payment flows remain available at this stage.
3. Polyakov added that the Russian state could, in the future, add Telegram’s operating company to Rosfinmonitoring’s list, pointing to the 2022 designation of Meta as an example. But as of now, he said, that is a future issue, not a current one.
4. The day before, Russia’s Federal Security Service said it had opened a criminal case against the entrepreneur for “assisting terrorist activity.” Separately, State Duma deputy chairman for information policy Andrey Svintsov urged Russians to stop buying TON (Gram), paying for subscriptions, and making “any transactions inside the Telegram ecosystem.”