Pavel Kushnir (b. 1984), a parishioner of the Tambov Church of Evangelical Christians-Baptists, musician, pianist, and anti-war activist.
He participated in anti-war activism: pickets against the war in Donbas and the annexation of Crimea, and distributing anti-war leaflets following the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine.
On 9 May 2023, Kushnir declared his first hunger strike protesting against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and held it for 20 days. He held his next 100-day hunger strike until March 2024.
Kushnir published the Foreign Agent Mulder (Иноагент Малдер) YouTube channel. Since November 2022, he published there four videos in which he poetically criticised the Russian authorities’ policies, the laws, and the invasion of Ukraine. In the video discussing the Holy Scriptures, a so-called traditional family, and homophobia, Kushnir summed it up as follows:
Down with the war in Ukraine! Give us peace and negotiations! Give us a ceasefire! Down with prison! Down with fucking Putin! Down with the fascist Putin regime, finally! All the lies of this world! Damn you, fascists! Come, Lord Jesus! The truth is somewhere very, very close.
In the last video, Kushnir discussed the Bucha massacre and declared that he “will not bow to the beast”. During the entire existence of the channel created in 2011, it only had five subscribers; currently, this number has reached 1,350.
Kushnir was arrested in a case of public calls for terrorist activity (Article 205.2 of the Criminal Code) in May 2024. The Atypical Birobidzhan media was the first to report Kushnir’s arrest citing Kushnir’s four YouTube videos as the reason. They also alleged that Kushnir had a homemade FBR agent ID on him.
On 27 July 2024, Kushnir died at the age of 39 in a Birobidzhan pretrial detention centre following a five-day dry hunger strike. The farewell ceremony took place in Birobidzhan on 8 August 2024. Signs of beatings were found on the body. On 16 August 2024, the farewell ceremony took place in Tambov. There, Vladimir Popov, a preacher of the Tambov Church of Evangelical Christians-Baptists, said about Kushnir:
Like any great talented person, Pavel was a sensitive, impressionable person. He deeply and acutely felt what is called the tragedy of existence, and the tragedy of our time, the world tragedy in which our country and other countries found themselves. And therefore he could not remain indifferent to what was happening in our world.
