I haven’t heard about Pavel Durov since he was arrested in the summer of 2024. Checking on the Wikipedia article:
On 28 August, Durov was charged on twelve counts, including violations related to drug trafficking, child exploitation, money laundering and nine other crimes.[6][57] On the same day Durov was released from custody due to the expiration of the maximum allowable detention (96 hours) and placed under the judicial supervision, with an obligation to post a 5 million euro bail, a ban from leaving France, and the obligation to report to a police station twice a week. [58]
So it sounds like he is essentially on house arrest in France. That’s not as bad as Julian Assange, but it’s pretty bad.
Russian international representative Mikhail Ulyanov and multiple other Russian politicians immediately stated that France was taking actions like a dictatorship would. Ulyanov wrote on his Twitter/X profile: “Some naive persons still don’t understand that if they play [a] more or less visible role in [the] international information space, it is not safe for them to visit countries which [are moving] towards much more totalitarian societies.” These statements were noted by Reuters journalists to be markedly similar to criticism the Russian government faced in 2018 when attempting to put a ban on Telegram.[8]
You know you’re living in interesting times when folks from Russia point out the totalitarian nature of your country’s policy.