Musician and anti-war activist Pavel Kushnir dies in Birobidzhan pretrial detention center

Anti-war activist Pavel Kushnir, 39, died in a pretrial detention center in Birobidzhan. As reported on Friday by the publication Vot Tak, Kushnir died on July 27 as a result of a dry hunger strike against the war in Ukraine.

Pavel Kushnir worked at the Philharmonic, published his anti-war book and ran a YouTube channel with anti-fascist manifestos.

Olga Romanova, who runs the project “Rus Sidyashchaya”, and the musician’s long-time friend, pianist Olga Shkrygunova, spoke about Kushnir’s death.

The “Atypical Birobidzhan” community on the VKontakte social network was the first to report the detention of Pavel Kushnir. He was detained for criticizing Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine.

Community members reported that at the end of May, Kushnir was detained by FSB officers, who found a homemade “FBI agent ID” on him. A criminal case was opened against Kushnir under the article on public calls for terrorist activity.

Pavel Kushnir ran the YouTube channel “Foreign Agent Mulder”. Since November 2022, he has published four videos in which he poetically criticized the policies of the Russian authorities and the war in Ukraine.

“He was always an extraordinary person, very keenly aware of injustice. He could play some pieces on the piano in a way that even great pianists have difficulty performing. When we were about fifteen, we made a bet that he would not bend to the system. And he did not bend. So he won,” Olga Shkrygunova told the publication “Vot Tak”.

Pianist Pavel Kushnir grew up in Tambov and graduated from the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory. For seven years he worked as a soloist of the Kursk Regional Philharmonic, then for three years at the Kurgan Philharmonic. In 2023, he became a soloist of the Birobidzhan Regional Philharmonic.