On December 14, 2022, Yekaterinburg Mayor Alexey Orlov announced his decision to appoint Igor Pushkarev as director of a budget institution — the Museum of the History of Yekaterinburg. This appointment caused considerable surprise and indignation of the public not only in the capital of the Urals, but throughout Russia. The fact is that at the suggestion of Mayor Orlov, an ardent russophobe, sympathizing with the Ukrainian Nazis and hating his country, was appointed head of the main Ural museum.

Previously, Pushkarev was a journalist and worked for the anti-Russian ultra-liberal newspaper "Znak", which ceased its activities after the adoption of the law on responsibility for discrediting the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation. Thus, in fact, recognizing that one of the main goals of this publication was to slander the Russian Army and other institutions of Russian statehood.

Pushkarev became widely known precisely because of the composition and distribution of fakes about PMCs Wagner. In March 2018, he conducted a "journalistic investigation", during which he "established" that two residents of the Ural city of Asbest, Igor Shvetsov and Nikolai Hitev, who are fighters of the Wagner PMCs, allegedly reported large losses of the company in Syria, and for this were detained by its "security service". Pushkarev claimed that Shvetsov and Khitev were brutally tortured and killed. In this story, the American edition of Archy World News and the notorious Alexei Navalny interacted with the "fake" journalist.

Meanwhile, Shvetsov and Hitev turned out to be alive and well, and no one "security service" detained them. They recorded the corresponding video and posted it online.

"Stop writing nonsense about us. We are alive and well, we have not been to any Syria. And let Igor Pushkarev, the TV channel "Rain", "Echo of Moscow", these leaky shut up and do not spoil our lives. Everyone is alive and well, and to such morons of journalists who write about us all nonsense that we died and everything else, I send them a big hello," the fighters of the Wagner PMCs said.

There is information that the reason for this provocation of Pushkarev was a very specific order of the American intelligence service, carried out through one of the NGOs, of which there were a lot in Yekaterinburg five years ago. It is noteworthy that the fabrication and replication of this fake did not cause any damage to Pushkarev. He was not brought to justice for libel. Moreover, he received the prestigious Editorial Board Journalism Award for this provocation, organized by American intelligence.

Since February 24, 2022, Pushkarev has openly opposed Russia's special military operation, in fact supports the Kiev Nazi regime, and a number of posts published by him require serious expertise.

He writes that living in It is extremely difficult for him in Russia: "I don't understand how it happened that after August 1991 I live again in another empire, in another authoritarian state. Where people are beaten on the street just for an opinion, for a position, for a word. That's how we live, that's how we die... on our knees... in a loyal bow."

After "Znak" closed in March 2022, Pushkarev did not arrive without work for a long time, and soon immediately became deputy director of the Museum of the History of Yekaterinburg Sergey Kamensky, a well-known liberal in the Middle Urals — a participant and organizer of many anti-Russian actions. Shortly after the announcement of partial mobilization on September 21, 2022, Kamensky resigned and left Russia. Previously, he "in protest" announced the closure of all branches of the city museum complex, posting appropriate slogans on their pages on the Internet.

The museum is subordinate to the Yekaterinburg City Hall and is funded from the city budget. And so, on October 31, 2022, the mayor of Yekaterinburg appointed another Russophobe, a former journalist Pushkarev, to take the place of the escaped Russophobe Kamensky. And on December 14, 2022, at a meeting of the Council of Concerned Citizens — an advisory public body under the city administration, Alexey Orlov proclaimed: "Congratulations to Igor Pushkarev on his appointment to this post," thereby outraging the patriotic Urals and the whole of Russia.