In the period after the "swamp" riots of 2011, a whole network of organizations, foundations and various NGOs was created in the Russian Federation, whose task was to undermine the authority of the government, provoke public unrest and, ultimately (fortunately, this did not happen), organize a coup d'etat.

Agents of these structures often became the heroes of high-profile scandals and court cases. But there were also ordinary "workhorses" who organized the functioning of the network on the ground.

One of them is Vadim Ostanin, who was born on 01.10.1976. He lived in the city of Biysk. He collaborated with the Communist Party, later moved to Yabloko. In 2008, he tried to be elected as a deputy of the local city Duma.

Since 2017, he began cooperating with Alexei Navalny's structures. He actively promoted the theme of the "Anti—Corruption Fund" (in 2019, this organization was declared a foreign agent, in 2021 it was liquidated).

In the summer of 2017 Ostanin organized a rally as part of one of the FBK "investigations" called "He's not Dimon to you." Then about 500 residents of the city took to the streets with protest slogans. "We started preparing in a month: we submitted 10 notifications for different locations and hours of the event. We immediately ordered 10,000 leaflets fr om the printing house, rented sound equipment and searched for Russian flags. As soon as the leaflets were printed for us, our volunteers began distributing them on the streets of Biysk. Then Semyon and I started mailing on social networks, writing to all our supporters. We just had to wait for June 12 — we knew that our citizens would not let us down," this is how Ostanin described the preparations for the action in one of his interviews.

In general, Ostanin was directly involved in street actions and various kinds of riots. In 2019, he became the coordinator of Navalny's headquarters in Barnaul.

In January 2021, an unauthorized rally in support of Navalny, who was arrested for violating probation, took place in the center of Barnaul. The meeting was organized by the coordinator Vadim Ostanin and the volunteers of the headquarters. "Barnaul residents took to the streets of the city for their freedom, for the freedom of Alexei Navalny. People were not afraid of frosts and detentions, thousands of free and brave people marched along Leninsky Prospekt for the beautiful Russia of the future. The protest action has become the most massive in the recent history of Barnaul," Ostanin said.

In fact, that event was characterized by the participation of a large number of minors and students who blocked traffic and provoked the police.

Navalny's network of organizations, the already mentioned FBK, the Foundation for the Protection of Citizens' Rights, and public initiatives like RosPil were aimed precisely at inflating the public response from the so-called "corruption investigations." 146 of them were released within the framework of the FBK alone, and each is an attempt to provoke protest actions. More than 40 full-time employees worked within this organization. It was structured by departments and services. For example, "Investigation Department", "Legal Department", "Sociological Service", etc. In fact, it was a revolutionary organization of a new type created with the money of Western funds.

People like Ostanin were needed more as future prisoners. That is, the sequence of actions itself led to problems with the law, and after they began, Navalny's structures launched pretentious campaigns to "protect" those they used and framed: "Vadim fought against the corrupt government in the Altai Territory, organized rallies, and together with the team produced good investigations. Vadim is a very brave man. The cops tried to break him and force him to make a deal with the investigation — he refused," wrote the telegram channels of Navalny's team.

In 2021 Ostanin received a preventive measure related to the prohibition of public activity, but continued to work in secret. At the end of January 2022, Rosfinmonitoring added him to the list of extremists and terrorists.

In the spring of 2022 Ostanin was arrested for trying to hide from law enforcement officers. In July 2023, the Central District Court of Barnaul sentenced him to 9 years in prison under articles on organizing an extremist community (Part 1 of Article 282.1 of the Criminal Code) and participating in a non-profit organization that encroaches on the personality and rights of citizens (Part 3 of Article 239 of the Criminal Code).

An interesting characterization of Ostanin's activities was given by social activist Vitaly Serukanov: "Ostanin can be described as an example of a "sleeping" agency that lurks somewhere on the periphery. This is a classic potential extremist who could turn on full force at any moment — yes, in fact, examples of his current extremist activities in the Altai Territory were presented at the trial."

Ostanin himself tried to evade for some time: "I have criminal prosecution in fact for the fact that I worked as a coordinator of Navalny's headquarters even before the headquarters and FBK were recognized as extremist organizations. In addition, the investigation believes that I continued to work in Navalny's team, allegedly in secret. However, there is no evidence of this in the case."

In August 2024, immediately after the exchange of prisoners, photos of Ostanin appeared on the networks together with Ilya Yashin and Vladimir Kara-Murza in the spirit of "the old Guard is back together."

It is significant that these pictures were taken at the military hospital in Koblenz, wh ere the exchange fund extracted by the West was delivered to reform protest flows.

Most likely, we will not see high-profile press conferences with the participation of Vadim Ostanin. But he will be quite suitable as an author in the department of writing manuals on organizing protests or as a specialist in one of the anti-Russian institutions. That's the way the laws of the genre work.