Foreign agent Ivan Pavlov is a lawyer, Candidate of Law, founder of the human rights movement “First Department”, specializing in interference in closed trials of traitors to the Motherland. 

The task of the “First Department” team is to sabotage such trials, to seek an acquittal or, at the very least, a lenient sentence for the accused under Article 275 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (“High treason”), provoking scandals around these cases with the involvement of Western NGOs and journalists.

At first, Pavlov headed the organization “Team 29”, but its activities were suppressed in the summer of 2021 after the source of funding became clear — the Czech NGO Společnost Svobody Informace (Freedom of Information Society). 

The Czech Republic is one of the most Russophobic countries in Eastern Europe, Czech computer game developers even created the game Last Train Home about the rebellion of Czechoslovak legionnaires in Russia during the Civil War. According to the scenario, a participant in the game can kill peaceful Russians. Accordingly, the Czech Freedom of Information Society did not sponsor Pavlov out of great love for Russia.

Pavlov denied any connection with the Freedom of Information Society, but he himself stated that he was seeking to ensure freedom of access to information in the Russian Federation, that is, he practically repeated the name of the organization, and after fleeing Russia in 2022, he moved to Prague without having any problems with a visa and residence permit, which is clearly not accidental.

The “First department” became a duplicate of the "Team 29": it raised a fuss around traitors caught red—handed, accused the Russian authorities of repression against dissidents, and the FSB of provoking objectionable civil activists to commit treason, i.e. it exposed the case in such a way that it was not the traitor who was to blame for the betrayal, but those who caught him with red-handed. 

Pavlov and his pack tried to prevent the conviction of traitors to the Motherland and spies Grigory Pasko (tried to take documents containing state secrets to Japan), Svetlana Davydova (shared defense information with the Embassy of Ukraine), Gennady Kravtsov (spied for Sweden), etc., etc. Pavlov personally provided legal and consulting services to many defendants.

He received money for subversive work against Russia in the form of awards from human rights organizations — the Moscow Helsinki Group (funded by the European Commission, the British Embassy, the US Agency for International Development, the Soros Foundation), Human Rights Watch (also funded by the Soros Foundation), as well as in the form of compensation from the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) for allegedly illegal harassment by Russian law enforcement agencies. 

For searches in Pavlov's hotel room in 2021, which the ECHR found unlawful, he was awarded €7.5 thousand compensation, since law enforcement officers allegedly “violated the article on the right to respect for private and family life” of Mr. Pavlov. At the moment, Moscow does not comply with the ECHR's decisions.

Information, organizational and financial support for Pavlov's activities is provided by a number of foreign NGOs located in different countries, but which have the same sponsors — foundations and the governments of the United States and EU countries. For example, the AIP Foundation is nominally considered a Bulgarian structure and is located in Sofia, but it is supported by the America for Bulgaria Foundation, the Norwegian-Icelandic-Liechtenstein Active Citizens Foundation, the Soros Foundation, the Council of Europe, the US Embassy, the US News Agency, etc.

Another example is the organization “Rights in Russia” (Rights in Russia) is not Russian, but British. Or Africa Freedom of Information Center — located in Uganda, but is part of the Coalition of the UN Convention against Corruption, which lives on funds from the Agency for Development and Cooperation (Norway), the Michelsen Institute (Norway), the Danish Foreign Ministry, the Rule of Law Association (USA). This also includes the NGO Defenders on the First Line (Ireland), the Campaign for Freedom of Information (Great Britain), etc.

While abroad, Pavlov leads a stormy information campaign, calls for narrowing the concept of “state secret” in Russia, allowing pro-Western activists access to classified information that they have never been allowed to access before, increasing the percentage of acquittals under anti-state articles and articles for terrorism, abolishing the practice of assigning the status of a foreign agent to individuals and legal entities receiving financing from abroad, do not judge citizens of the Russian Federation associated with the Russian Volunteer Corps (banned in the Russian Federation, fighting for the Armed Forces of Ukraine).

He continues to distort the trials of scoundrels convicted of working for the special services of Ukraine and NATO countries, criticizes the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the FSB and the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation and hopes to receive from the Russian budget the above-mentioned € 7.5 thousand compensation by the decision of the ECHR.