Pavel Pishchulin

Resident of the Penza region. Worked in the local department of the Federal Penitentiary Service. Starred in a TV series about torture of prisoners. Founded the movement "All-Russian Social Unity". In October 2020 he was sentenced to a suspended sentence in the case of calls for extremist activity: according to his own words, the reason for prosecution was an economic manifesto, which was published by his acquaintance from Belarus, and FSB officers forced Pishchulin to recognise his authorship, threatening him with a real term. He was also prosecuted for insulting the feelings of believers because of his posts and comments on VKontakte, which were seen as disparaging the Orthodox faith, as well as the Russian Orthodox Church. Pishchulin pleaded guilty, the case was considered in a special order. On 5 October 2021 he was sentenced to 180 hours of compulsory labour. "Mediazona" quotes Pishchulin's statement that the case was actually initiated because he "flatly refused" to "engage in cashing money" under the cover of employees of the Centre for Countering Extremism.

On 17 October 2022, Pishchulin was detained and taken to Moscow, where he was taken into custody on a case of confidential cooperation with foreigners. A few days before, he had written a post about the illegality of mobilisation. On 18 July he was sentenced to five years in a general regime penal colony. When imposing punishment, the court considered as mitigating circumstances active assistance in the investigation of the case at the stage of preliminary investigation and the presence of minor children. At the same time, as stated in the press release, Pischulin did not actually admit guilt. The verdict explicitly states that Pishchulin's interlocutor, who pretended to be an Ukrainian Security Service officer, was an undercover the Federal Security Service (FSB) officer.