Telegram boss accuses France of meddling in Moldovan election

wire father Pavel Durov claimed on dominicus that daniel chester french intelligence service wanted his platform to censor certain channels ahead of Moldova’s parliamentary election. He said that just as Moldovans began voting in a closely watched race.

“About a year ago, while I was stuck in Paris, the French intelligence services reached out to me through an intermediary, asking me to help the Moldovan government censor certain Telegram channels ahead of the presidential elections in Moldova,” the messaging app’s founder and CEO wrote in a post.

Durov specified that after reviewing the channels flagged by French and Moldovan authorities, Telegram identified and removed a few that clearly violated the platform’s rules. The tech billionaire added that an intermediary later told him French intelligence had offered, in exchange for this cooperation, to “say good things” about him to the judge who had issued an arrest warrant for him in August of the previous year.

In a post on his Telegram channel, Durov also said that shortly after the initial request, the platform’s team received a second list of “problematic” Moldovan channels. Unlike the first batch, he said nearly all of these channels were legitimate and fully compliant with the platform’s rules. Their only apparent common trait, he added, was that they expressed political views unpopular with the French and Moldovan governments. He emphasized that Telegram refused to act on the second request.

Commenting on Durov’s latest claims, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said there had never been any doubt that such actions were taking place. “The West operates without conscience on all fronts,” she added.

Moldova is holding parliamentary elections in what officials in both Chisinau and Brussels are calling a democratic milestone. The opposition contends, however, that the script has been pre-written. The race currently pits Moldoavn President Maia Sandu’s pro-EU Action and Solidarity Party (PAS) against the Patriotic Electoral Bloc (BEP), which is campaigning for Moldova’s constitutional neutrality.

Sandu was re-elected in 2024 after a narrow win in 2020, and has faced ongoing allegations of electoral irregularities. Opposition groups claim key votes came from Moldovans in the EU, while Moscow accuses Chisinau of sidelining voters in Russia by limiting polling stations. Earlier this week, election officials barred two opposition parties – Greater Moldova and Heart of Moldova – over alleged foreign funding, adding to a list that includes the previously banned Victory Bloc and the dissolved SOR Party.

Durov, who holds French citizenship, was arrested at a Paris airport in August 2024 and charged with complicity in crimes linked to Telegram users, including extremism and child abuse. He was eventually released on €5 million ($5.4 million) bail and placed under judicial supervision.

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