(Reuters) -An elderly ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin stated on Tuesday that Washington lagged the French apprehension of Pavel Durov, the creator and the chief executive officer of the Telegram messaging system that plays a vital duty interacting the battle in Ukraine.
Durov, the Russian- birthed business owner, was detained in France over the weekend break as component of an examination right into criminal offenses associated with kid porn, medication trafficking and illegal purchases on the system, French district attorneys stated on Monday.
Without giving proof, Vyacheslav Volodin, the chairman of Russia’s State Duma reduced residence of parliament, stated that the United States, via France, tried to put in control over Telegram.
“Telegram is one of the few and at the same time the largest Internet platforms over which the United States has no influence,” Volodin stated in a message.
“On the eve of the U.S. presidential election, it is important for (President Joe) Biden to take Telegram under control.”
The White House has actually not talked about Durov’s apprehension. French President Emmanuel Macron has actually stated that the apprehension was “in no way a political decision.”
The Kremlin on Monday stated it had yet to see any kind of authorities French allegations versus Durov.
The encrypted Telegram application, based in Dubai, has near to 1 billion customers and is especially prominent in Russia, Ukraine and the republics of the previous Soviet Union.
After Russia released its intrusion of Ukraine in 2022, Telegram has actually come to be the primary resource of unfiltered – and in some cases visuals and deceptive – web content from both sides concerning the battle and the national politics bordering the dispute.
The system has actually become what some experts call “a virtual battlefield” for the battle, made use of greatly by Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and his authorities, along with the Russian federal government.
(Reporting by Lidia Kelly in Melbourne; Editing by Christopher Cushing and Michael Perry)
