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PDB Afternoon Bulletin | February 25th, 2026: Iranian Students Clash With Regime Militias & Moscow Targets Telegram
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5:00am I'm up with a crisp Celsius energy drink running 12 miles today. Grab a green juice, quick change and head to work. Meetings, workshops. One more Celsius. No slowing down. Working late, but obviously still meeting the girls for a little dancing. Celsius Live Fit. Go grab a cold refreshing Celsius at your local retailer or locate now@celsius.com.
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Foreign. 25 February welcome to the PDB Afternoon Bulletin. I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage. All right, let's get briefed. First up, protests are erupting across Iran for the fifth straight day as university campuses turn into flashpoints between anti regime students and pro government militias. You have to really admire the courage of these protesters after the regime murdered demonstrators by the thousands during the most recent uprisings. I'll have the details later in the show. The Kremlin may be preparing its biggest digital crackdown yet as Russian security services float terrorism allegations against the founder of the country's most popular messaging service. That would be, of course, Telegram. But first, today's afternoon spotlight. Protests are erupting in Iran once again, and for the fifth straight day, university campuses across the country have turned into battlegrounds. The unrest began on Saturday as students returned to in person classes at the start of a new academic term. What began as memorial gatherings for classmates killed during January's brutal crackdown has now evolved into open confrontation between anti regime activists and pro government militias. Clashes have now been reported in Tehran, Shiraz, Isfahan and Mashad at the University of Tehran and in the Iran University of Science and Technology. Video footage shows pro regime students, or at least people purporting to be students. Many are believed to be affiliated with the Basij militia. A volunteer force, of course tied to the IRGC shows those individuals chasing and beating protesters. Students opposing the regime of chanted death to the dictator, referring to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and quote, for everyone killed, a thousand will follow. In a symbolic act of defiance, some have burned the Islamic Republic's flag and raised the pre1979 lion and Sun flag. It's a direct rejection of the clerical regime that came to power after the revolution. Pro government counter protesters have responded by waving Iranian flags, chanting God is great and burning American and Israeli flags. That's original, accusing foreign powers of fueling the unrest. Now it's worth noting how this differs from the January countrywide demonstrations. Those protests did not begin on university campuses. They began in markets and commercial centers, driven primarily by economic Grievances, inflation, sanctions, pressure, and a collapsing currency. Only later did campuses become involved. This time, the spark appears to be ideological. Students are organizing memorials openly challenging the legitimacy of the regime, mocking Ayatollah Khamenei, and in some cases, calling for the restoration of the monarchy. Nearly five decades after the 1979 revolution. That shift matters. Economic protests threaten stability. Ideological protests challenge authority itself. For now, the protests appear largely confined to university campuses and have not yet spilled into broader street demonstrations. But their persistence is significant. Universities in Iran have historically served as incubators for wider political movements, most notably during the 1999 student protests and again during the 2009 green movement. Authorities are walking essentially a tightrope. A 2000 law technically restricts police and military forces from entering campuses without authorization, a safeguard enacted after security forces stormed dormitories during the 1999 unrest. However, students report increased surveillance, disciplinary suspensions, text messages barring them from campus, and involvement by plainclothes security personnel. And the timing is particularly sensitive. Iran's leadership is simultaneously navigating high stakes nuclear negotiations with the US with talks scheduled in Geneva later this week. President Trump has warned that, quote, really bad things will happen if Tehran refuses a deal. And US Military assets, of course, have been building up across the region. Inside Iran, officials are publicly emphasizing what they call red lines, including protection of national symbols and the regime's authority, while insisting students must be, quote, heard. But the images coming out of Tehran suggest something closer to a struggle for legitimacy. Supreme Leader Khamenei now faces what many analysts describe as the gravest crisis of his three decade rule. A collapsing economy under sanctions and international pressure over their nuclear program, and a generation of students openly defying the system. Again. Five days in, the campuses are still restless, and the regime is once again forced to choose between restraint and repression. Unless the tiger has somehow changed its stripes, which seems unlikely, it's likely that the choice will be repression. All right, coming up next, the Kremlin sets its sights on Telegram as terrorism allegations against its founder raise the prospect of Russia's last major independent, well, sort of platform being shut down for good. I'll be right back. Hey, Mike Baker here. Let me take just a moment of your time to talk about security, specifically your online security, and to tell you about a great company out there working to make people safer online. And that, of course, would be Delete Me. Deleteme makes it easy, quick and safe to remove your personal data online at a time when surveillance and data breaches are common enough to make everyone vulnerable. Look, it's easier than ever to find personal information about people online, you know that. But having your address, your phone number, your family members information, just hanging out on the Internet can have actual consequences in the real world and can make you vulnerable to all sorts of scams. 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That's H A R B I n G E R just like it sounds on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your shows. Or just go to jordanharbinger.com start to dive right in. It's one of those podcasts that makes you smarter, so give it a go. Welcome back to the BDB Afternoon Bulletin. The Kremlin has already banned Facebook, it's throttled YouTube. And now, well, now it may be coming for Telegram. Russian security services are laying the groundwork for terrorism related charges against the founder of the messaging platform. It's a step that could eliminate the country's last independent digital space. The campaign centers on Pavel Durov. He's the Russian born billionaire tech entrepreneur who created Telegram. In this long resisted Kremlin pressure. This week, two nearly identical articles appeared in a state run newspaper and a pro Kremlin tabloid. Both cited research from Russia's Federal Security Service. That's the FSB claiming Durov was under investigation for allegedly aiding and abetting terrorism. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed that, quote, FSB research informed those reports. Now, I want to point out that no formal charges have been announced. But in Russia, accusations of terrorism aren't just legal steps, they're typically political signals. And the signal here is unmistakable. The Kremlin appears to be building the case to remove Telegram itself. To understand what a ban could mean for ordinary Russian citizens, you have to understand Telegram's role inside the country. As of this year, more than 100 million people inside Russia use Telegram every month and roughly half the country has it installed on their phones. That makes Telegram not just popular, it makes it foundational. Since the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, when Facebook and Instagram were banned and YouTube came under mounting restrictions, Telegram became one of the last places that millions of Russians, including soldiers and independent reporters, could exchange news and even criticism outside the government's direct grip. The state media reports accused Telegram of becoming, quote, unquote, the main tool used by Ukraine and NATO intelligence agencies against Russia. They allege, without publicly presenting evidence, that the platform helped coordinate attacks that killed members of Russia's military top brass and facilitated militant activity by casting the dispute in terms of terrorism and battlefield sabotage. Authorities aren't just criticizing an app, they're constructing the justification to shut it down. When it comes to Durov's response, well, he pushed back quickly. In a post on Telegram, he said the Kremlin quote, fabricates new pretext to restrict Russians access to Telegram. And he called the campaign, quote, a sad spectacle of a state afraid of its own people, end quote. So you may be asking, why tighten the screws now? Well, part of the answer lies in tensions between Telegram and Russian regulators. Earlier this month, regulator authorities tightened the censure measures on the app, accusing it of failing to curb extremist accounts. That move triggered backlash, and not only from opposition figures, but from unlikely quarters, pro Kremlin lawmakers and military bloggers who depend on Telegram for battlefield information. Sergei Miradov, a longtime ally of Russian President Putin, criticized Russia's communications regulator for cutting off what he described as, quote, the only line of communication between troops and their families. Russian army drone commander Platon Mamatov told the New York Times that regulating Telegram makes it difficult to share intelligence and coordinate operations. In other words, even voices aligned with the Kremlin warn that restricting the platform could undermine Russia's own war effort. Now, this is not the first time that Moscow has tried to rein in Telegram. Authorities attempted to block the platform between 2018 and 2020, and failed. Voice calls were restricted last summer. And for years, Russia's security services demanded access to Telegram's encryption keys. That's a step that would obviously give them visibility into private conversations. At the same time, the Kremlin has been promoting a state backed alternative known as Max Max, a so called communication, quote, super app that many Russians view with suspicion, particularly over concerns about weak encryption and, of course, government monitoring. Really, the Kremlin monitoring private conversations? Say it ain't so. That's where the terrorism charge becomes critical. Framing Telegram as a national security threat gives the Kremlin a legal path to shut it down and present the move not as censorship, but as a national security measure. It's the Kremlin looking to exert complete control over the content and flow of information. What's Old is new again. And that, my friends, is the PDB afternoon bulletin for Wednesday 25th February. Now, if you have any questions or comments, please reach out to me at pdb@the first tv.com and of course to listen to the show ad free. It's really very simple. Just become a premium member of the President's Daily brief by visiting PDB premium.com I'm Mike Baker and I'll be back tomorrow. Until then, stay informed, stay safe, stay cool. Foreign. Baker here. Now. Many of you know me as the host of the President's Daily Brief, or at least I hope you know me as the host of the pdb. But did you know I'm also a business owner? That's right. 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