Telegram’s abandoned legal battle How Pavel Durov walked away from a landmark case against Russian censorship at Europe’s highest human rights court
These days, the Russian authorities are far less likely to criticize Telegram than other messaging platforms. Security officials still occasionally accuse “unfriendly” forces of exploiting the app, and some regions restrict access, but the federal government has dropped its plans to block Telegram nationwide — plans it still pursues for services like WhatsApp. Seven years ago, the situation was completely different. In 2018, Telegram was both the primary target of Russian Internet censorship and a symbol of resistance against the crackdown on digital freedoms.
Pavel Durov’s company fought for its rights in every available court, including the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). Telegram filed its lawsuit against the Russian government with the ECHR in 2018. Two years later, when the messenger had already been unblocked in Russia for four months, the court began reviewing the case. However, in 2022, Durov began ignoring the proceedings in Strasbourg. Finally, in late April 2025, the ECHR decided to drop the case. Meduza recounts the story of this unusual legal battle.
Roskomnadzor and the FSB would like a word
Telegram’s legal troubles in Russia began in the spring of 2017. In April, the federal censor, Roskomnadzor, started blocking the first applications that refused to join a new registry of “information dissemination organizers.” Companies on this list were required to cooperate with the Federal Security Service (FSB) by storing all user message data, providing it upon request, and supplying “information necessary for decoding” those messages.
In May, Roskomnadzor demanded that Telegram join the registry, threatening to block the platform if it refused to comply. On June 23, then-Roskomnadzor head Alexander Zharov issued an ultimatum to the messenger’s team, personally addressing founder Pavel Durov in an open letter. “The time allotted by law for Roskomnadzor to make a decision is running out,” Zharov warned. Five days later, Durov yielded, furnishing the data necessary for Telegram’s registration. Within hours, Roskomnadzor added the service to the registry.
On September 27, Durov published a copy of an administrative violation notice compiled by the FSB two weeks earlier. The document revealed that the agency had demanded Telegram’s message decryption keys just two weeks after the company was added to the “information dissemination organizers” registry. On October 16, Telegram was fined 800,000 rubles (roughly $14,000 at the time) for refusing to provide access to six accounts of individuals “suspected of involvement in terrorist activities.”
Immediately afterward, Durov declared that he was recruiting lawyers who “wanted to tackle this” and “had extensive experience in cases of this nature.” The next day, he announced that the international human rights group Agora would represent Telegram’s interests in court against the FSB.
The ECHR and getting blocked in Russia
In December 2017, Moscow’s courts rejected Telegram’s bid to overturn the fine. The following year, on March 14, the company appealed those rulings to the European Court of Human Rights. Telegram also sought the invalidation of the FSB order requiring “information dissemination organizers” to surrender keys for “decoding” user messages. However, on March 20, Russia's Supreme Court upheld the FSB’s demands.
On April 13, a Moscow district court decided to block Telegram immediately, without waiting for previous court orders to take legal effect. Three days later, Roskomnadzor began blocking the messenger.
At all these trials, lawyers from the Agora human rights group represented Telegram. On June 18, Agora director Pavel Chikov announced a second complaint filed with the ECHR, this one challenging the Russian authorities’ decision to block Telegram.
Telegram restructures legally
On April 23, 2019, Telegram notified the ECHR of its intention to continue legal proceedings despite its changed corporate structure. Telegram Messenger Inc., registered in the British Virgin Islands, was now pursuing the complaint against Russian authorities, replacing the liquidated British company Telegram Messenger LLP. Lawyer Damir Gainutdinov from Agora represented the interests of both companies in the proceedings.
Russia suddenly unblocks Telegram
On April 22, the newspaper Kommersant reported that federal lawmakers had prepared a bill to unblock Telegram. The legislation would prohibit blocking services that the state uses to disseminate “information about current conditions during high alert or emergency situations.” These reforms would unblock Telegram because emergency management officials in Moscow relied on the messaging platform to inform the public about the coronavirus pandemic.
On June 4, Pavel Durov endorsed the deputies’ initiative and celebrated Telegram’s growing counter-terrorism efforts, writing, “While we never harbored any sympathy for terrorists, we have made even greater strides in overcoming these threats.” Eleven days later, lawmakers introduced the Telegram unblocking bill to the State Duma.
On June 18, Roskomnadzor announced that it was lifting its ban on Telegram after consultations with the Prosecutor General’s Office. Commenting on Durov’s June 4 statement, the agency said, “We welcome the expressed readiness to counter terrorism and extremism.” However, the Moscow district court’s ruling to block the platform remained in force, and lawmakers later rejected the draft legislation that would have established an exemption for services like Telegram.
On October 29, the ECHR officially notified the Russian government about Telegram’s lawsuit and solicited responses to questions about the 800,000-ruble fine and the decision to block the messaging platform.
- Did the “interferences” in the present case (the fine imposed for Telegram Messenger LLP’s refusal to disclose technical data which would facilitate the State’s access to the confidential private information of Telegram application users; the blocking order and its immediate enforcement) relate to the applicant company’s (companies’) freedom of expression as protected by Article 10 § 1 of the Convention? Were the interferences “prescribed by law”? Did the interferences pursue a legitimate aim within the meaning of Article 10 § 2 of the Convention? Were the interferences “necessary in a democratic society”?
- Was there a violation of Article 13 in conjunction with Article 10 of the Convention in respect of the judicial authorization for blocking Telegram Messenger and the immediate enforcement of the blocking order?
- As to the justice of the peace’s judgment of October 16, 2017, as upheld on appeal on December 12, 2017, was there a violation of Article 6 of the Convention (under its criminal limb) in those proceedings on account of (i) the requirement of objective impartiality because of the lack of a prosecuting party; (ii) the jurisdiction of the trial court (“established by law”)?
- As to the judgment of April 13, 2018, by the Taganskiy District Court as upheld on further review, was there a violation of Article 6 of the Convention (under its civil limb) in the blocking proceedings on account of (i) the decision to examine the case under the Code of Civil Procedure rather than the Code of Administrative Procedure; (ii) the insufficient time to prepare the ICO’s [Internet communications organizer’s] defense prior to the first-instance hearing, no access to the statement of claim and related documents prior to the hearing, and the ICO lawyer’s absence from it?
- The respondent Government is requested to submit copies of the court decisions mentioned in the disclosure order of July 12, 2017; and the Supreme Court’s decisions taken on judicial review in respect of the FSB’s Order No. 432.
Pavel Durov ignores the ECHR
After Russian authorities responded to the ECHR’s questions, the court asked Telegram to review their arguments and present its own observations by May 16, 2022. Telegram never answered.
On May 24, the ECHR attempted to contact the platform’s management once more, notifying them that the deadline for submitting observations had passed and no extension had been requested. The court’s registry sent the letter to the applicants’ representative through the court’s official electronic communication service (eComms). A copy of the letter was also emailed to Durov’s office. According to the ECHR, Telegram’s representative downloaded the letter through eComms but never responded.
By this point, the court listed a different lawyer as Telegram’s representative: St. Petersburg-based attorney Anastasia Chiganov-Zalesskaya.
The ECHR Refuses to Consider the Case
The ECHR waited another three years. On April 24, 2025, the court unanimously decided to discontinue the Telegram case, striking the company’s application from its docket. The court cited Article 37 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which permits the ECHR to dismiss applications where the applicant “does not intend to pursue his application.”
The court published its decision on May 15, 2025.
It’s worth noting that Russia was expelled from the Council of Europe on March 16, 2022 — two months before Telegram was due to submit its response to the ECHR. This was more than three years before the court finally discontinued Telegram’s case. The Kremlin, for its part, denounced the European Convention on Human Rights, which formally ceased to be in force in Russia six months later. As a result, Russians lost the right to complain to the ECHR about human rights violations committed after September 16, 2022.
However, the Russian authorities’ refusal to recognize the ECHR’s jurisdiction did not stop the work of the court, which continued to review all old appeals and accept new ones, provided that the alleged rights violations occurred before September 16, 2022. It was under these circumstances that the ECHR ruled on July 4, 2024, that the Russian authorities violated Article 8 of the Convention (“the right to respect for private and family life”) by demanding the decryption keys for Telegram users’ messages. The court ordered compensation payments to 26 plaintiffs, including Yulia Navalnaya (as widow of applicant Alexey Navalny) and journalist Alexander Plushev.
Story by Denis Dmitriev
Translation by Kevin Rothrock