The lawyer assessed the legality of the purchase of Telegram Premium in Russia

Buying a Telegram Premium subscription in Russia currently does not constitute a violation of the law and does not entail administrative or criminal liability for users. Lawyer and human rights activist Ekaterina Kutuzova told Izvestia about this on July 30.

According to the expert, the current Russian legislation does not prohibit the purchase of a paid subscription in the messenger, nor does it impose penalties for paying for it.

"The legal status of Telegram founder Pavel Durov (included in the list of terrorists and extremists of Rosfinmonitoring. — Ed.) or the existence of criminal cases against him does not automatically mean a ban on the use of the messenger or its individual functions," Kutuzova explained.

According to the lawyer, for restrictions to appear, a separate regulatory act is needed that would explicitly prohibit payment for the service or establish responsibility for such actions. Until such decisions are made, the purchase of Telegram Premium remains legal, and users are not responsible only for the fact of paying for a subscription.

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On the same day, Rosfinmonitoring added Pavel Durov, the founder of the Telegram messenger, to the list of terrorists and extremists. The day before, he was charged in the case of facilitating terrorist activities in Ukraine. The reason for the criminal case was the investigation of the activities of the chatbot "Diver/Leo — dating, communication and new friends" in Telegram, which was previously included in the unified register of prohibited information of Roskomnadzor.

In addition, the FSB of Russia stated that the administration of the messenger had not deleted prohibited information and a number of channels, chats and bots that were used by the special services of Ukraine and terrorist organizations. It was noted that the Ukrainian special services used the "Leo Diver" to involve Russian citizens in terrorism, and since July 2025, 46 Russian citizens aged 12 to 22 have been detained.

After the charges were filed, Durov changed his avatar on his channel, posting a meme with himself in the image of a terrorist. Marina Kim, first deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee on Information Policy, in turn, noted that Durov was personally charged with facilitating terrorist activities, and not the Telegram platform, and therefore it is too early to draw conclusions about the consequences for the audience.