26-year-old actor Pavel Ustinov, who in 2019 was charged with “causing harm to health” to an riot policeman at a rally, was mobilized and is now undergoing training. A message about this appeared on the page of the "New Theater" Eduard Boyakov in "VKontakte".
The publication says that Ustinov was serving in the National Guard.
“There are very resonant events in the artist’s biography – many people remember the period when social networks were full of avatars “I / We Pavel Ustinov”. After these dramatic events, he served at the Gorky Moscow Art Theater, where he played in the performances "Laurel" and "The Cherry Orchard". After the opening of the New Theater, Pavel was invited to join his troupe, but another service fell to him – in the ranks of the Russian Army, on the very front line. We are waiting for Paul's return. We are proud of him. And we believe in our Victory."
The theater press service also quotes Ustinov about the war, according to which he stated that his brother was also called up. When and where the actor made the statement is not specified.
“If war comes to our house, it will be too late. Behind us are families, wives, parents, children who can be in great danger if they do nothing. Moreover, I would not have forgiven myself if I had stood aside when my brother was called.
We are citizens of our country, which, like other countries, has its own problems. The integrity of the territories must be preserved, and if the country needed additional forces for this, then there can be no other way out.”
In 2019, Pavel Ustinov was sentenced to 3.5 years in a penal colony after being detained at a protest rally on August 3. He was accused of "use of violence dangerous to life and health" of a representative of the authorities (Part 2 of Article 318 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). According to investigators, Ustinov actively resisted the National Guard officer detaining him at the protest and dislocated his shoulder. Then colleagues stood up for the actor, they went to pickets in his support. Both the actor and his colleagues insisted that he did not take part in the protest, but simply stood by. As a result, the Moscow City Court changed the sentence to Ustinov, he was given a one-year suspended sentence. The board of the court decided to change the category of the crime from grave to medium and mitigate the punishment.
In September, Ustinov, already sentenced to three and a half years on charges of assaulting a government official and released from pre-trial detention center pending an appeal, joined the "Freedom to All" series of solo pickets outside the presidential administration building on Staraya Square in Moscow. He also recorded a video message in which he spoke out in support of other defendants in the “Moscow case”.
Earlier, The Insider, in its stream on the YouTube channel, entered into an agreement on "mutual creative cooperation" with the Investigative Committee of Russia. Alexey Malobrodsky, ex-producer of the Gogol Center, told The Insider that it is unlikely that the theater can provide this “detective office” with a sufficient number of “informants or some other informants.” Malobrodsky claims that “people in expensive shoes” flocked to the theater as soon as it became popular on social networks and public space. One of the directors spoke on anonymous terms about how they tried to recruit him. According to him, for many years he went to rallies against the authorities, at some point he got a call and offered to meet with an employee of the Presidential Administration, who turned out to be an employee of law enforcement agencies. At a meeting in a restaurant, the security official claimed that he was "responsible for culture" and suggested "not to cooperate, but to consult" with the special service. Most likely, this employee represented the center of public relations of the FSB, journalist Sergei Kanev noted. According to him, they have a plan for the number of agents in each theater.