Last week, I wrote to you about how the Russian opposition and the Kremlin came together to defend Telegram founder Pavel Durov following his arrest in Paris on charges that he essentially abetted the rampant trafficking in weapons, drugs, and child sexual-abuse material that takes place on his messaging app. (He was later released on bail.) Perhaps for the first time since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the government of Vladimir Putin and those trying to overthrow it agreed on something: Durov was a free-speech warrior, and his detention by the French government was an assault on that essential freedom by a hypocritical West. 

I got some interesting responses to that piece, including from sources here in the States who agreed with my perspective that Durov was far from a champion of free speech, and that those defending him didn’t quite understand the values they claimed to be fighting for. But they additionally raised an interesting question based on an evolving theory: How could Durov be a champion of free speech when he seemed to have been cooperating with the F.S.B. for years? So… I decided to look into it.