Moscow’s Zamoskvoretsky Court sentenced Pavel Ivanov, the former sales director of Popcorn Books, to a four-year suspended prison term in a case over the sale of queer literature, according to Mediazona. Prosecutors had requested the same sentence.
The court also banned Ivanov for four years from publishing books and administering websites, and ordered the confiscation of nearly 2.7 million rubles as “criminal income.” The case was heard in a single day.
According to the outlet, Ivanov admitted guilt, reached a deal with investigators, and testified against other defendants connected to Popcorn Books, Individuum, and Eksmo, the company that acquired those publishing houses.
“I considered it my civic duty to testify against people who were engaged in and are engaged in anti-state activity,” Ivanov said in court.
He also said he had left Eksmo six months before his detention. In addition, according to statements made in court, the former Popcorn Books employee said he had wanted to go to the war in Ukraine and that he had “fought this all his life,” starting in Soviet times.
Ivanov, former Popcorn Books director Dmitry Protopopov, and Individuum and Popcorn Books employee Artyom Vakhlyaev were detained in May 2025. All three became defendants in an “extremism” case over the distribution of several books, including the novel Summer in a Pioneer Tie.
Those books were banned in Russia after the authorities declared the non-existent “International LGBT Movement” to be “extremist.” In spring 2026, security forces also detained several Eksmo executives, including publishing house CEO Yevgeny Kapyev, but released them after questioning. Russian media, citing sources, reported that Protopopov, Vakhlyaev, and Ivanov gave testimony against Eksmo’s top managers. It also emerged in court that the case over queer literature sales was opened after a “test purchase” of banned books in which law enforcement involved teenagers.