The Russian tech mogul has accused Paris of a broader crackdown on digital privacy and media freedom
Telegram co-founder Pavel Durov has condemned France, saying it is “not a free country” after a raid on Elon Musk’s X offices in Paris.
The search was part of a probe into the social media platform’s Grok AI and its alleged generation of sexualized deepfake images of women and children, and comes amid a broader crackdown on X across the EU.
“French police is currently raiding X’s office in Paris. France is the only country in the world that is criminally persecuting all social networks that give people some degree of freedom (Telegram, X, TikTok…),” Durov wrote on X on Tuesday.
Don’t be mistaken: this is not a free country.
According to the Paris prosecutor’s office, the raid on the X offices was carried out in cooperation with French cybercrime authorities and Europol, as part of an investigation launched last month.
The authorities are investigating a long list of alleged offenses, including the possession and organized distribution of child pornography, the creation of sexualized deepfakes, the spread of Holocaust denial content, and fraudulent data gathering, the prosecutor’s office said in a press release on Tuesday.
Musk and former X CEO Linda Yaccarino have been summoned to Paris for “voluntary interviews” in April, the press release said.
X has also faced scrutiny in the broader EU and in the UK.
Last month, the European Commission and British telecommunications watchdog Ofcom announced they were investigating the platform after a recent integration of its chatbot Grok allowed users to generate sexualized deepfake images, including of minors.
The probes followed a €150 million ($177 million) fine the commission issued X in December for breaching transparency obligations under digital regulations.
According to Durov, the probes are part of a broader push by the EU to beat into line those social media platforms “that refuse to silently censor free speech.”
The Russian-born tech mogul was arrested in Paris in 2024 over allegations that Telegram had failed to deter criminal activity on the platform. Durov has maintained that his detention was politically motivated, and accused French authorities of attempting to force him to use his platform to curb “conservative voices” ahead of the election in Romania.
Diplomacy is possible if talks are “free of threats and unreasonable expectations,” President Masoud Pezeshkian has said
Iran has signaled a willingness to pursue diplomacy with the United States, while stressing that any dialogue must be free of pressure and respect Tehran’s stated position on its nuclear program.
Tensions have run high since the US struck nuclear facilities in Iran last June, and spiked amid the widespread anti-government protests which gripped the country in December and January. In recent weeks, Washington has deployed an ‘armada’ led by the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln to the Middle East, demanding that any potential deal limit uranium enrichment and restrict Tehran’s ballistic missile program.
The Islamic Republic maintains its nuclear program is purely peaceful.
Russia has repeatedly said it believes the Iranian nuclear issue should be resolved through political and diplomatic means. The Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Jarida reported last week that intervention by Moscow and Ankara had diminished the likelihood of a US attack on Iran.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian wrote on X on Tuesday that he had instructed his country’s foreign minister to “prepare the ground for fair and equitable negotiations” if a suitable environment, “free from threats and unreasonable expectations,” emerges.
Ali Shamkhani, adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, similarly added that Tehran does not seek nuclear weapons. Speaking to the Lebanese TV channel Al Mayadeen late on Monday, he said any talks with the US would initially be indirect, and only proceed to direct negotiations if a deal appeared attainable.
Shamkhani added that Washington “must offer something in return” if Iran were to reduce uranium enrichment.
According to multiple media reports, US envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi could meet in Istanbul later this week, alongside representatives from several Arab and Muslim countries, to discuss a possible deal. This would be the first high-level US-Iran contact since last April, shortly before the June bombing of Iranian nuclear and missile sites.
Despite the threats of new military action, US President Donald Trump told reporters on Sunday that he hopes “we make a deal” with Iran. Washington withdrew from the 2015 nuclear accord, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, in 2018 and reimposed sanctions, prompting Tehran to gradually scale back compliance and enrich uranium to 60% purity.
The sex offender who represented the banking family claimed “many opportunities” would arise after the deadly Western-backed putsch
Pedophile sex-offender Jeffrey Epstein treated the 2014 Western-backed coup in Kiev as a lucrative business opportunity, newly released documents suggest.
The latest batch of Epstein-related files released by the US Department of Justice last week includes emails in which the disgraced financier sought to encourage his contacts, including Ariane de Rothschild and British billionaire Richard Branson, to cash in on the post-coup chaos in Ukraine.
In fact, Swiss bankers Edmond de Rothschild Group – headed by Ariane de Rothschild – did take over the business assets of the first post-coup president, Pyotr Poroshenko. It later got its hands on Ukrainian state energy giant Nafta, where it pulled strings and steered billions in state finances.
Diplomatic contact with Moscow was cut after the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022
Ukraine’s European backers are preparing for possible talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, French President Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday.
The EU and UK cut off diplomatic communication with Moscow following the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022. The Russian and French leaders last spoke by phone in July – their first conversation in over three years.
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Macron said a resumption of dialogue with Putin “is being prepared” and described any future talks as potentially “useful.”
“Discussions are taking place at the technical level to prepare this,” he said, answering a reporter who asked the French president about his call in December for the EU to start talks with Moscow.
Macron added that preparations for resuming dialogue were being handled “transparently” in consultation with Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky and “our main European colleagues.”
The French president’s remarks are the latest push from Paris for talks with Putin.
On Sunday, French Foreign Minister Jean‑Noel Barrot urged the EU to establish a direct channel of communication with Russia.
In an interview with Liberation, Barrot said France had “never ruled out, in principle, engaging with Russia,” provided any talks were “beneficial” and conducted transparently with Ukraine and the EU.
The remarks by French officials reflect growing concern among EU member states that their influence has been diminished by US President Donald Trump. Since returning to office last year, Trump has sought to broker an end to the Ukraine conflict through direct talks between Kiev and Moscow.
Macron and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni have previously called on the EU to appoint a special envoy to Russia to ensure the bloc has a voice at the negotiating table.
Russian officials have repeatedly said they are open to good‑faith negotiations, provided Western countries respect Moscow’s security concerns and abandon their goal of inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia through Ukraine.
The move would be essential for Beijing to turn into a true “financial powerhouse,” the president said
The Chinese yuan must become a global reserve currency, President Xi Jinping has said.
The yuan (renminbi) became the second most-used trade finance currency after the dollar following the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022, as sanctions targeting Moscow prompted many countries to begin trading with each other in national currencies. However, its role in official reserves remains limited.
Beijing must have “a strong currency, which is widely used in international trade and investment, and foreign exchange markets, and has the status of a global reserve currency,” Xi wrote in an article for the Communist Party’s journal, Qiushi, on Saturday.
The yuan should also be supported by a “powerful central bank,” the president insisted.
According to Xi, these changes are essential if China hopes to become a true “financial powerhouse,” as its current monetary system is “large, but not strong enough.”
Last summer, Chinese Central Bank Governor Pan Gongsheng warned against “excessive reliance” on the US dollar. He stressed the growing influence of the yuan, saying that “in the future, the global monetary system may continue to evolve towards a pattern, in which a few sovereign currencies coexist, compete with each other, and check and balance each other.”
The German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) warned last week that the US dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency could be challenged as early as 2026 amid funding shortages, geopolitical shocks and growing politicization.
The warning followed the Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index posting its sharpest drop since last April, after US President Donald Trump announced sweeping global tariffs.
Trump earlier dismissed concerns over the US currency’s weakness, saying it is “doing great” and should be allowed to “seek its own level.”
According to IMF data, the dollar accounted for about 57% of global reserves in the third quarter of 2025, the euro for 20% and the yuan for 1.93%.
In November, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said 99.1% of trade between Moscow and Beijing had already shifted to rubles and yuan in order to reduce reliance on Western financial institutions.
Berlin and Rome have reportedly aligned to reshape European policy
Germany is moving to deepen ties with Italy as tensions rise with France over EU trade policy, Emmanuel Macron’s looming exit, and relations with US President Donald Trump, The Telegraph reported on Monday, citing diplomats from the bloc.
France and Germany have long been the “engine” of EU policymaking, but the outlet described Macron as a “lame duck” whose mandate ends in 2027.
“Berlin needs partners it can work with. Can they work with Macron at the moment? Not really. He is leaving office soon and France is unstable. Germans hate instability,” an EU diplomat told the outlet.
According to the report, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has approached Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni with proposals to restructure Europe. The plan envisions a “multi-speed Europe” in which a core group of member states – including Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, the Netherlands, and France – can advance policies more quickly and bypass EU bureaucracy, although sources said not all 27 EU members are expected to join.
Italian officials said privately that the accord, which focuses on cooperation between Italy and Germany on defense, migration, and trade, shows a “new center of gravity inside the EU,” the British paper said.
France and Germany have long clashed over EU governance, with Paris advocating greater borrowing and centralization while Berlin resists due to its reliance on exports to the US. During Trump’s Greenland dispute, Macron urged the bloc to use its “trade bazooka,” referring to the EU’s Anti-Coercion Instrument, a measure never before invoked. Merz criticized the move, citing German business interests, and has also expressed frustration at Macron’s inability to implement reforms amid a divided parliament and public resistance.
France’s instability is compounded by economic strain. Last year, the budget deficit reached 5.8% of GDP, above the EU target of 3%. By early 2025, public debt stood at €3.346 trillion ($3.6 trillion), or 114% of GDP. In January, the government approved the 2026 budget using a constitutional provision allowing laws to pass without a parliamentary vote. Both right- and left-wing parties have signaled plans for a no-confidence motion.
The EU as a whole faces economic pressure from high energy costs after phasing out Russian oil and gas following the 2022 escalation of the Ukraine conflict. Increased reliance on US LNG has pushed prices higher. Germany’s economy contracted in 2023 and 2024, with officials linking the slowdown to energy costs. In January, the German Chamber of Commerce and Industry cited the surge in prices as a factor behind a spike in bankruptcies.
Russia has warned that any Western troops sent to the country would be treated as “legitimate targets” and amount to outside intervention
Kiev and its Western backers have drawn up a plan that envisages military forces from the US and European countries moving into Ukraine to fight Russian troops in the event that Moscow violates a ceasefire being demanded by Vladimir Zelensky, the Financial Times has reported, citing sources.
Russian officials, including President Vladimir Putin, have repeatedly rejected the idea of a ceasefire as a precursor to a peace deal, saying it would only be used by Kiev and its sponsors to rearm and regroup forces. Instead, Moscow has insisted that the conflict needs a permanent peace solution which addresses its root causes. Russia has also categorically ruled out the deployment of Western forces to Ukraine during or after the crisis.
During meetings in December and January, Ukrainian, European, and US officials agreed a “multi-tiered response” to breaches of a possible ceasefire by Moscow, the FT said in an article on Tuesday.
Three people familiar with the matter told the outlet that the counter-measures would come within 24 hours, starting with a diplomatic warning and engagement by the Ukrainian military.
If this failed to stop the fighting, the second phase of the plan would see an intervention by the so-called ‘Coalition of the Willing’, which includes numerous EU nations as well as the UK, Norway, Iceland, and Türkiye, they said.
In case the violation turned out to be extensive and extended beyond 72 hours, it would be met with “a coordinated military response by a Western-backed force, involving the US military,” the sources claimed.
The FT report comes ahead of the second round of talks between Russian, Ukrainian, and US delegations scheduled to take place in Abu Dhabi, UAE on Wednesday and Thursday.
In his address to the Ukrainian parliament on Tuesday, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said that the ground, air, and naval forces of the ‘Coalition of the Willing’ would arrive in Ukraine as soon as a peace deal is reached. NATO countries will also help Kiev “in other ways,” he added.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov reiterated on Monday that the deployment of Western military units and infrastructure to Ukraine “will be classified as a foreign intervention posing a direct threat to Russia’s security.”
Putin warned last September that if any foreign troops arrive in the country, Russia will “proceed from the fact that these will be legitimate targets for their destruction.”
The bloc’s restriction on natural gas imports raises costs and violates its own treaties, Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has said
Hungary has filed a lawsuit with the EU’s top court seeking to annul a ban on Russian energy supplies to the bloc, Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has announced.
The EU Council last month approved a plan to phase out Russian gas imports by 2028, requiring short-term contracts to end within six months and all remaining pipeline and LNG supplies to stop by the end of 2027.
Several member states criticized the move, warning it would push up prices and threaten energy security. Hungary and Slovakia in particular have refused to support the initiative.
Announcing the legal action on X on Monday, Szijjarto said Hungary would “challenge the REPowerEU regulation banning the import of Russian energy and request its annulment.”
The diplomat said the lawsuit was based on three main arguments, including that restrictions on energy imports can only be imposed through sanctions requiring unanimous approval. The EU had been aware of objections from Hungary and Slovakia, Szijjarto said, but still adopted the measure “under the guise of a trade policy.”
He stressed that EU treaties make clear that each member state decides its own energy sources and suppliers. The regulation also breached the principle of energy solidarity, he stressed, adding the decision “clearly violates” this in Hungary’s case.
Warning of the impact on supply and prices, Szijjarto said only “more expensive and less reliable alternatives” were available and that “without Russian oil and gas, our energy security cannot be guaranteed,” nor could low energy costs be maintained for Hungarian families.
The trial could last “about one and three-quarters to two years” and “must be brought to a conclusion,” Szijjarto said, adding that the current ruling party in Hungary would likely need to win the next elections to succeed.
He also accused “experts from the international energy world” of pushing Hungary to abandon cheap Russian energy for more expensive US supplies. The EU has become increasingly dependent on American natural gas, which is set to account for nearly half of the bloc’s supply by 2030, according to various estimates.
The EU has seen a surge in energy prices since it began phasing out Russian oil and gas imports following the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022. Moscow says Western nations are hurting their own economies by choosing costlier and less reliable alternatives.
The US president has said that unlike the “Crooked Democrats,” he never went to the disgraced financier’s private island
US President Donald Trump has denied being friends with Jeffrey Epstein, accusing the late convicted sex offender of plotting against him.
Last week, the US Department of Justice released the final batch of over 3 million pages, 2,000 videos, and 180,000 images under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, legislation signed by Trump in November, compelling the agency to publish data tied to federal criminal investigations into the disgraced financier.
The US president’s name is mentioned in the files on at least 3,000 occasions. The documents also show that Epstein, who died in a New York jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex-trafficking charges, had communication with multiple high-profile US figures, including former President Bill Clinton and billionaires Bill Gates and Elon Musk.
Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Monday that “not only wasn’t I friendly with Jeffrey Epstein but, based upon information that has just been released by the Department of Justice, Epstein and a SLEAZEBAG lying ‘author’ named Michael Wolff, conspired in order to damage me and/or my Presidency.”
“Unlike so many people that like to ‘talk’ trash, I never went to the infested Epstein island but, almost all of these Crooked Democrats, and their Donors, did,” he insisted.
Trump already promised on Saturday that he would sue Wolff, a US journalist behind the 2018 unauthorized autobiography ‘Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House’.
Wolff said in an Instagram message on Sunday that he wasn’t sure what had caused Trump’s anger, but acknowledged that he had encouraged Epstein to “go public with what he knew about Trump.”
The journalist featured in many of the Epstein files published by the DOJ last November. In an email from February 2016, Wolff suggested that the disgraced financier could become the “bullet” to end Trump’s first presidential campaign.
The DOJ prefaced its latest release with a statement, saying the emails revealed no suggestion from Epstein that Trump “had done anything criminal or had any inappropriate contact with any of his victims.” According to the agency, the emails instead show the convicted sex offender frequently disparaging the president, calling him “stupid” and questioning his mental fitness.
The US state of New Mexico has accused the company of profiting from exposing youngsters to online abuse
Facebook’s parent company, Meta, has entered a jury trial in a landmark lawsuit alleging the US tech giant has knowingly exposed children to serious harm on its social media platforms, including sexual abuse.
The trial began on Monday in the US state of New Mexico, where Attorney General Raul Torrez claimed in his lawsuit that Meta’s social networks – including Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp – create dangerous environments for children, exposing them to sexual exploitation, solicitation, and sextortion, often leading to real-world abuse and human trafficking.
The trial follows an undercover investigation that Torrez, a former prosecutor, and his office ran in 2023, which alleged that Meta fails to prevent child trafficking on its platforms. State prosecutors want the platform to be held accountable for pushing addictive or harmful algorithms to children’s feeds.
Meta denies the allegations, saying it has extensive safeguards to protect younger users. The company attempted to have the case dismissed, arguing it is protected from liability by free-speech and online immunity laws, but a judge ruled the lawsuit can proceed.
The case marks the second major lawsuit against the tech giant in 2026 involving alleged harm to minors. Another high-profile trial is underway in Los Angeles, where families and schools have sued global social media giants Meta, TikTok, and YouTube in their first-ever product liability case, alleging the platforms were knowingly designed to addict children and harm their mental health.
Globally, the company is facing growing regulatory challenges, having been designated an “extremist organization” in Russia in 2022 and facing multiple EU actions, including a €797 million ($940 million) antitrust fine and separate copyright, data-protection, and advertising cases across Europe.
Mounting concerns over child safety online have intensified legal pressure. In the US, Meta faces lawsuits alleging it prioritized engagement over issues such as user safety and addictive features. Several countries have moved to restrict social media access for children and teens, with Australia banning users under 16, Denmark planning a ban for under-15s, and France, Spain, and Italy pursuing similar age‑limit laws.
