New Delhi, Aug. 2 -- MOSCOW - The designation arrived not as a court ruling or a press conference, but as a line added to a government database. On Thursday, Russia's Federal Financial Monitoring Service, known as Rosfinmonitoring, listed Pavel Durov, the founder of Telegram, as a terrorist and extremist. An asterisk beside his name signals an active criminal case.

Durov is now legally barred from interacting with Russian state media, publishing information online within Russia's jurisdiction, organizing public events, participating in any electoral process, and accessing most financial services. It is a civil disability layered on top of a criminal case, and it reaches across borders.

The underlying criminal case was announced one day ...