AGL 40.00 No Change ▼ 0.00 (0%)
AIRLINK 129.00 Decreased By ▼ -0.53 (-0.41%)
BOP 6.76 Increased By ▲ 0.08 (1.2%)
CNERGY 4.50 Decreased By ▼ -0.13 (-2.81%)
DCL 8.70 Decreased By ▼ -0.24 (-2.68%)
DFML 41.00 Decreased By ▼ -0.69 (-1.66%)
DGKC 81.30 Decreased By ▼ -2.47 (-2.95%)
FCCL 32.68 Decreased By ▼ -0.09 (-0.27%)
FFBL 74.25 Decreased By ▼ -1.22 (-1.62%)
FFL 11.75 Increased By ▲ 0.28 (2.44%)
HUBC 110.03 Decreased By ▼ -0.52 (-0.47%)
HUMNL 13.80 Decreased By ▼ -0.76 (-5.22%)
KEL 5.29 Decreased By ▼ -0.10 (-1.86%)
KOSM 7.63 Decreased By ▼ -0.77 (-9.17%)
MLCF 38.35 Decreased By ▼ -1.44 (-3.62%)
NBP 63.70 Increased By ▲ 3.41 (5.66%)
OGDC 194.88 Decreased By ▼ -4.78 (-2.39%)
PAEL 25.75 Decreased By ▼ -0.90 (-3.38%)
PIBTL 7.37 Decreased By ▼ -0.29 (-3.79%)
PPL 155.74 Decreased By ▼ -2.18 (-1.38%)
PRL 25.70 Decreased By ▼ -1.03 (-3.85%)
PTC 17.56 Decreased By ▼ -0.90 (-4.88%)
SEARL 78.71 Decreased By ▼ -3.73 (-4.52%)
TELE 7.88 Decreased By ▼ -0.43 (-5.17%)
TOMCL 33.61 Decreased By ▼ -0.90 (-2.61%)
TPLP 8.41 Decreased By ▼ -0.65 (-7.17%)
TREET 16.26 Decreased By ▼ -1.21 (-6.93%)
TRG 58.60 Decreased By ▼ -2.72 (-4.44%)
UNITY 27.51 Increased By ▲ 0.08 (0.29%)
WTL 1.41 Increased By ▲ 0.03 (2.17%)
BR100 10,450 Increased By 43.4 (0.42%)
BR30 31,209 Decreased By -504.2 (-1.59%)
KSE100 97,798 Increased By 469.8 (0.48%)
KSE30 30,481 Increased By 288.3 (0.95%)

A senior ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that Washington was behind the French arrest of Pavel Durov, the founder and the CEO of the Telegram messaging platform that plays a key role communicating the war in Ukraine.

Durov, the Russian-born entrepreneur, was arrested in France over the weekend as part of an investigation into crimes related to child pornography, drug trafficking and fraudulent transactions on the platform, French prosecutors said on Monday.

Without providing evidence, Vyacheslav Volodin, the chairman of Russia’s State Duma lower house of parliament, said that the United States, through France, attempted to exert 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 said in a post.

“On the eve of the US presidential election, it is important for (President Joe) Biden to take Telegram under control.” The White House has not commented on Durov’s arrest. French President Emmanuel Macron has said that the arrest was “in no way a political decision.”

The Kremlin on Monday said it had yet to see any official French accusations against Durov. The encrypted Telegram app, based in Dubai, has close to 1 billion users and is particularly influential in Russia, Ukraine and the republics of the former Soviet Union.

Macron says no political motive behind Telegram CEO’s arrest

After Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Telegram has become the main source of unfiltered - and sometimes graphic and misleading - content from both sides about the war and the politics surrounding the conflict.

The platform has become what some analysts call “a virtual battlefield” for the war, used heavily by Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and his officials, as well as the Russian government.

Comments

200 characters