Ivanov Pavel Viktorovich

In Moscow, late in the evening of May 13, 2025, the Main Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee of Russia for Moscow opened a criminal case on the organization of extremist organization activities, participation in it and/or involvement in such activities against "an unidentified person. The next day, on May 14, security forces conducted searches at the publishing houses 'Eksmo', Popcorn books, and Individuum. Raids were also conducted at the homes of Anatoly Norovyatkin, the distribution director of the publishing house "Eksmo", and 10 other employees. Later, Norovytnyk was released after questioning. In the case of the publishers, the investigative authorities seized more than 1000 copies of books. Three people were detained on charges of creating an extremist organization, participating in it, and recruiting people to work for it: Pavel Ivanov, former sales director of the publishing house 'Eksmo', Artem Vakhyalev, a warehouse manager, and Dmitry Protopopov, head of the publishing houses Popcorn Books and Individuum. According to investigators, in early March 2022, Vedel discussed the war in Ukraine three times with acquaintances over the phone and provided information that did not correspond to the official position of the Russian Ministry of Defense. The reason for the criminal prosecution was the distribution of books from Popcorn Books publishing house, against which an administrative case was opened in 2023 for "propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations" and "petty hooliganism. At the same time, in 2023, Eksmo acquired 51% of Individuum publishing house. Prior to this, the Ministry of Justice recognized former owners of Individuum Andrey Baev and Alexey Dokuchaev as 'foreign agents'. According to the investigation, the defendants in the case "for selfish reasons published and sold books promoting the activities of the LGBT movement, <...> to an unlimited circle of persons, including minors. The case involves 10 books from 2019–2022, that is, published before the law 'on the prohibition of LGBT propaganda' was adopted. Among them are bestsellers "Summer in a Pioneer Tie", What the Swallow Doesn't Say", "Heartstopper", etc. On May 15, 2025, the Zamoskvoretsky District Court of Moscow chose house arrest as a preventive measure for the defendants in the case.