The Alexander Nikitin case

Pavlov defended Alexander Nikitin, an environmentalist accused of high treason for having prepared the research report The Northern Fleet: A Potential Radioactive Contamination Threat for the Region.^[17] Nikitin was detained from February to December 1996; his case was widely covered by media, NGOs, and political organizations in Russia and Europe. Amnesty International recognized Nikitin as a prisoner of conscience.^[18] In 1998, the court sent the case back for further investigation. In 2000, Nikitin was fully acquitted by the Supreme Court of Russia.^[19]

The Grigory Pasko case

Pavlov represented Grigory Pasko, a military journalist arrested in 1997 and accused of high treason, alleging that when Pasko had flown from Russia to Japan, some documents had been taken from him and a preliminary studied had shown that they contained state secret-compromising information.^[20] The Amnesty International recognized Pasko, too, as a prisoner of conscience.^[21] In 1999, the military court of the Pacific Fleet sentenced Pasko to a year of imprisonment for abuse of official powers, immediately including amnesty; he was released from the courtroom.^[22]

In 2000, the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of Russia canceled Pasko's sentence and the case was sent back for re-examination. On 25 December 2001 the military court of the Pacific Fleet found Pasko guilty of high treason in the form of espionage and sentenced him to four years of imprisonment. Having stayed in a penal colony for more than half a year, Pasko was released on parole.^[23]

The Svetlana Davydova case

Ivan Pavlov defended Svetlana Davydova, who had been accused of high treason for a phone call to the Ukrainian embassy. Davydova became the first person accused in accordance with Article 275, which states that any assistance to a foreign state or organization, or to its representative, in activities aimed against security of the Russian state, is considered high treason.^[24] The Davydova case is the first known accusation of pro-Ukraine espionage since the beginning of the military conflict in the east of Ukraine.

According to the investigation, in April 2014, Davydova noticed that a military unit placed near her home was empty. She heard that a soldier from the associated military unit had said that he and his unit were being sent on a mission, and she informed the Ukrainian embassy. Eight months later, on 21 January 2015, she was arrested by an FSB operational group.^[25]

On 1 February 2015 Davydova dismissed her assigned counsel and replaced him with Pavlov and Sergey Badamshin. After introducing independent defence attorneys, she withdrew her previous testimony, explaining that she had made it under duress.^[26] On 13 March 2015 her attorneys stated that her case was dropped due to lack of evidence.^[27]

The Gennady Kravtsov case

In May 2014, Gennady Kravtsov, ex-officer of the Main Intelligence Directorate, was detained in Moscow upon suspicion of high treason. He left the service in the Main Intelligence Directorate in 2005 and had a foreign travel passport since 2011.^[28] The FSB public relations center informed that the case was initiated because Kravtsov had been supposed some information on Russian space intelligence activities to email to the radio engineering center of the Swedish ministry for defense. Kravtsov's wife, meanwhile, stated that he submitted a job resume to a Swedish organization and it was rejected since he was not a Swedish citizen. Kravtsov's defense team states that the resume contained no information comprising state secret.^[29]

As Kravtsov's defending attorney, Ivan Pavlov stated that the defense never denied the mere fact of resume submission but argued against the statement that the resume had contained any information comprising state secret. On 21 September 2015 the Moscow City Court sentenced Kravtsov to 14 years of imprisonment in a maximum security penal colony. On 4 February 2016 the Supreme Court of Russia revised Kravtsov's sentence and reduced his imprisonment term to 6 years.^[30]

The Evgeny Petrin case

Pavlov represented interests of Evgeny Petrin who had worked in the Moscow Patriarchy department of external church relations and was detained in June 2014 upon accusation of high treason.^[31] According to the investigation, Petrin had provided to the CIA representatives a piece of information comprising state secret when he had worked in the department of external church relations. Petrin himself stated that he was an FSB Captain and had worked in the church department under cover. His brother stated that Evgeny had detected a Ukrainian businessman who, according to Petrin's information, “had assisted to dissent between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Ukrainian one, had performed anti-Russian activities in Ukraine, and had recruited people, e.g., in Russian government bodies”. Evgeny Petrin more than once asked the security bodies to initiate a criminal case against that person. However, according to his brother, neither the Russian Orthodox Church nor the FSB had been interested in that so that “they decided to discredit Evgeny, to make him a traitor”.^[32]

On 14 June 2016 Petrin was sentenced to 12 years of imprisonment in a maximum security penal colony and to a fine of 200 thousand rubles for espionage in favor of the US.^[33] Pavlov, as Petrin's defending attorney, says that Petrin was “coerced” into confession. Pavlov assesses Petrin's sentence as “a compromise between severity of accusation and failure of evidence”: “The prosecutor demanded a cruel punishment, 19 years of imprisonment, and the Moscow City Court sentenced Evgeny to a minimal term of 12 years. Had he been really guilty, they should have punished him to the full extent. The court decision on a minimal term shows that it wend hard with the prosecution”.^[34]

The Sochi cases

In December 2016, Ivan Pavlov told about his new case in an interview for the Meduza.^[35] He then started defending Oksana Sevastidi sentenced by the Krasnodar Territorial Court to seven years of imprisonment in March 2016 for high treason.^[36] It was in 2008, before the military conflict in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, that Sevastidi saw a train with military equipment moving in the direction of Abkhazia, and sent some SMS messages to an acquaintance of hers. In the beginning of 2015, she was arrested by security bodies who considered her SMSs high treason. Earlier, one similar case was known: Ekaterina Kharebava, a market saleswoman from Sochi, was in 2014 sentenced by the Krasnodar Territorial Court to six years of imprisonment for espionage. According to the investigation, in 2008 summer, Kharebava informed a military representative of Georgia on Russian troops’ movement.^[37]

According to Sevastidi, her first defending counsel, Ruslan Zurnadzhyan, made in fact nothing to defend her and never visited her in the pre-trial detention center.^[38] The Krasnodar Territory Bar Chamber inspected Zurnadzhyan's actions and found offense in them[50]. On 23 December 2016 President Vladimir Putin, at his annual press conference, promised to pay attention to Sevastidi's sentence.^[39] In February 2017, the Memorial human rights center recognized Sevastidi a political prisoner.^[40] On 7 March 2017 President Putin signed a decree granting pardon to Sevastidi.^[41] On 15 March the Supreme Court of Russia revised her sentence and reduced the punishment term from 7 to 3 years.^[42] After her release, Sevastidi told about Annik Kesyan, one more woman convicted for a SMS.^[43]

The Team 29 found that since 2013, the Krasnodar Territorial Court had issued at least ten sentences in case on high treason and espionage, convicting Ekaterina Kharebava, Oksana Sevastidi, Annik Kesyan, Marina Dzhandzhgava, Inga Tutisani, Manana Kapanadze, Petr Parpulov, Leval Latariya, Georgy Pataraya, and Georgy Khurtsilava.^[44] Investigators, judges, and the prosecutor were the same practically in all cases and many of them got promotion after those cases. For instance, Roman Troyan, former investigator, became head of the FSB Investigative Department for Krasnodar Territory.^[45] Leonid Korzhinek, prosecutor in the Kharebava, Dzhandzhgava, and Sevastidi cases, became Deputy Prosecutor General of Russia in 2016.^[46]

The Team 29 journalists found that at least six women (Ekaterina Kharebava, Oksana Sevastidi, Annik Kesyan, Marina Dzhandzhgava, Inga Tutisani, and Manana Kapanadze) were convicted just for SMS messages on open movements of military equipment to their acquaintances in Georgia.^[47] After that, the Team 29 attorneys entered the cases of Annik Kesyan, Marina Dzhandzhgava, and Inga Tutisani.^[48] On 29 July 2017 Vladimir Putin signed decrees on pardon for Marina Dzhandzhgava and Annik Kesyan;^[49] on 16 November 2017 Supreme Court revised Inga Tutisani's sentence and reduced her punishment term from 6 years to 4 years and 1 month.^[50] All three women were released.

On 16 March 2018 Ivan Pavlov informed on entrance of the case of Petr Parpulov, an ex-flight dispatcher from Sochi convicted by the Krasnodar Territorial Court.^[51] Parpulov was convicted to 12 years of imprisonment in a maximum security penal colony in January 2016 for high treason (Article 275 of the Criminal Code of Russia). On 12 March Parpulov's family was notified that he was denied of pardon.^[52]