A criminal case over so-called “LGBT extremism” against employees of Popcorn Books was opened after a law enforcement operation described as a “test purchase”. Mediazona reported this, citing case materials it reviewed.
According to investigators, in 2022 employees of Eksmo compiled two lists of books that security officials said contained “LGBT propaganda.” The “red” list included titles already banned, while the “yellow” list covered books that, in the view of investigators, could attract scrutiny from law enforcement. Officials claim books from the first list were meant for sale abroad, while those from the second were to be distributed in Russia.
Case materials say that in January 2024 former Popcorn Books sales director Pavel Ivanov received an order for 50 books from the “red” list. Investigators identified one buyer as a minor born in 2006 and another as a girl born in 2008. The latter is explicitly described in the file as a participant in the “test purchase.”
The case also mentions a shipment of books sent by bus to Azerbaijan and sales through Avito, where investigators say another “test purchase” was carried out. The indictment states that all the books were shipped from an Eksmo warehouse and processed through “shadow accounting,” while Popcorn Books management allegedly tracked the movement and sale of the “banned books” in real time.
Investigators argue that the activities of an “organized group” inside Eksmo were aimed at involving minors in the activities of the so-called “LGBT movement.”
On June 25, 2026, prosecutors requested a four-year suspended sentence for Ivanov on charges of organizing an “extremist” community. He admitted guilt, reached a deal with the investigation, and testified against other defendants.
“During the face-to-face interrogations, when unidentified persons from the Eksmo publishing house were presented, I fully exposed them in the criminal activity they were carrying out in the publishing house, because all of this happened before my eyes, and I witnessed how they were drawing us into this activity,” Ivanov said.
He added that he had testified voluntarily because he believed it was his civic duty to give truthful testimony about people who, in his words, were engaged in “anti-government activity” in violation of the Constitution. Ivanov also said that back in 2023 he had called in the State Duma for censorship of books to be introduced.