Russia’s FSB says it detained 46 users of a Telegram dating bot, ages 12 to 22, whom Ukrainian intelligence recruited for sabotage. But the chats in the videos offered as proof are on a Russian app.

Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said it had detained 46 users of Leonardo Daivinchik, a popular Telegram dating bot.

All of them are young Russians between the ages of 12 and 22, and all of them, the FSB claims, were recruited by Ukrainian intelligence services to commit crimes in Russia.

As proof of this “recruitment,” security officials released videos that show the detainees weren’t corresponding on Telegram at all.

That didn’t stop the security services from blaming Pavel Durov for everything and adding him to the list of terrorists and extremists kept by Rosfinmonitoring, Russia’s Federal Financial Monitoring Service.

Meduza explains what is known about Leonardo Daivinchik and how safe it is to use this bot and others like it. ...