The girlfriend of Telegram co-founder Pavel Durov has claimed that she lost her unborn baby due to the stress she endured following of the arrest of the Russian tech mogul.
Yulia Vavilova, a 24-year-old influencer, was briefly detained alongside Durov in France in late August and later summoned for questioning. In a Telegram post she published on Sunday, she also claimed to have been the target of online abuse.
Durov was arrested after landing in Paris in late August and charged with multiple offenses ranging from refusal to cooperate with the authorities to administering an online platform allegedly used by organized criminals. He was later released on bail but banned from leaving the country while his case was ongoing.
“The doctor said the baby’s heart wasn’t beating anymore,” Vavilova wrote in the post. She claimed she found out she was pregnant roughly a day after the Telegram CEO’s arrest in Paris. She was initially detained alongside Durov but said she was released the same day.
The French police subsequently summoned her for questioning later that day, but she did not go because her doctor advised her against it, the influencer said. She still had to endure what she called a three-to-four-hour-long questioning session four weeks later, according to her post.
According to Vavilova, she focused on her “physical and mental health” for the next month despite the stress related to Durov’s arrest. TF1 reported that the 39-year-old billionaire could face up to 20 years in prison. Vavilova also said she had faced a wave of hatred online.
“Bloggers blamed me for Pavel’s arrest, spreading conspiracy theories. The stress was indescribable. A panic attack kicked in. Everything came at once: Pavel’s arrest, lies and hate directed towards me.”
“It would have been easy to give up or go insane, but we embraced this new reality amidst the uncertainty,” she said.
In early October, her doctor told her that she had lost her baby. “It’s hard to describe the pain. We got so used to the idea by then. It was the 10th week,” Vavilova said, adding that, although she and Durov “managed to cope with so much at once,” it was “too much for the little one.”
Durov himself confirmed the story on his Telegram channel, adding that he was informed about his girlfriend’s pregnancy by his lawyer during a police questioning. “I learnt that while I was away, the pressure on Julia had been insane,” the billionaire wrote. “Julia stood strong. But, unlike me, she wasn’t used to hostility.”
The Telegram CEO had previously criticized the French authorities for what he called a “misguided approach.” “No innovator will ever build new tools if they know they can be personally held responsible for potential abuse of those tools,” he said in early September upon his release on bail of €5 million ($5.5 million).
Durov had never publicly acknowledged Vavilova as his girlfriend before. The Telegram founder, who holds Russian, French, UAE, and St. Kitts and Nevis passports, claims to have fathered over 100 children through sperm donation.