Liar, liar iStories investigation uncovers activist who fabricated a backstory and embedded herself in Russia’s human rights community

Late last December, Maria Chashchilova announced on her Facebook page that the OVD-Info human rights project had suddenly fired her after nearly five years on the job. In the same post, Chashchilova described an “investigation” opened against her (by whom she didn’t say) and claimed that the people responsible had never spoken to her directly about their suspicions. The investigation’s nature became clearer later that day when iStories editor-in-chief Alesya Marakhovskaya confirmed that her outlet was reviewing strange “inconsistencies and gaps” in Chashchilova’s career and background. It turns out that she has a habit of making things up, and some of her fabrications are more serious than others.

On January 31, 2025, iStories published an investigation revealing that Maria Chashchilova lied about parts of her biography and work in human rights. She is a familiar face among Russian activists and journalists now living in exile, and her exposure as a frequent fraud has raised concerns that she may have put her colleagues and supposed friends at risk. 

Chashchilova grew up in Amursk, in Russia’s far-east Khabarovsk region. There, she worked briefly in the local police department’s investigations division before meeting her husband and moving to Murmansk, on the other side of the country. Living in the Arctic Circle, Chashchilova befriended a human rights activist (a woman who works with the LGBTQ+ community) and began volunteering at a charity that assists families. Chashchilova later divorced and moved to Moscow, now in a relationship with that same activist. Chashchilova worked with several human rights groups in Moscow, including OVD-Info. Next, after her relationship with the activist ended and she met her second husband, Chashchilova relocated to Russia’s North Caucasus and worked with victims of state repression in Chechnya. In 2022, she fled the country with her husband.

iStories journalist Irina Dolinina recalled meeting Chashchilova at a private training session on digital and physical security for reporters and human rights activists. She says Chashchilova stood out for her impressive resume and personal history. However, Dolinina first sensed something was amiss when she learned from a researcher that Chashchilova had asked for details about an upcoming report and lied that a mutual colleague had asked her to request the information. The incident led Dolinina to reexamine what she knew about Chashchilova, which prompted the iStories investigation. 

Russia’s official registry of attorneys shows no record of Chashchilova’s claimed status as a lawyer. iStories also learned that Moscow’s LGBT+ Community Center, where Chashchilova had worked, had asked her to produce her lawyer’s certificate but never received anything. Chashchilova initially said she lost the paperwork but later said she’d never professed to be a lawyer.

iStories also discovered that Chashchilova’s university diploma number isn’t listed in the Russian Federal Education and Science Supervision Service’s national registry. In fact, the document she provided was printed on a form the school stopped using two years before her supposed graduation. Chashchilova supplied a second diploma that is also missing from the national registry. Additionally, iStories found evidence suggesting that Chashchilova had altered a photograph of her official employment record.

Journalists spoke to the human rights activist Chashchilova met in Murmansk and learned that the two moved in together after Chashchilova accused her first husband of beating her. The activist described the night she came to her, sobbing hysterically about the alleged incident, though the activist said she saw no evidence of an attack: “There were no visible bruises, but I know that someone can hit you in a way that leaves no marks. Still, she was hysterical, so she stayed with me.” Chashchilova’s ex-husband, Denis, told iStories that he wasn’t surprised to learn about the investigation into his ex-wife. “She lied to me at every turn,” he said, claiming that he noticed her penchant for dishonesty after they moved in together. He denied ever hitting her.

One of the most impressive achievements Chashchilova claimed was her work with a woman who fled anti-gay persecution in Chechnya. Chashchilova said she played a direct role in the operation, “bandaging her wounds” after an attempted exorcism. Dmitry Piskunov, a lawyer at the Committee Against Torture and Chashchilova’s second husband, told iStories that she never took part in any such work. Others at the Committee, which evacuates people facing threats in Chechnya, described Chashchilova as “someone who didn’t really do much but was always sticking her nose where it doesn’t belong.” A coordinator at another LGBTQ+ rights group told iStories that Chashchilova was never involved in moving persecuted gay people out of Chechnya.

In emigration, Chashchilova was known for giving curiously generous gifts, inviting people to meals at expensive restaurants and spa days at luxury hotels. Irina Dolinina says Chashchilova sometimes asked her about the legal and financial structures of iStories and the investigative outlet Proekt — extremely sensitive questions for journalists living in exile.

Multiple strange coincidences have also fueled suspicions against Chashchilova. For example, Dolinina says she once shared her mailing address when Chashchilova wanted to know where to send a postcard from France. Dolinina never got a card but later received several threats addressed to the iStories newsroom.

In another worrying episode, Chashchilova helped organize a human rights conference in Berlin in April 2023, where two participants, including Free Russia Foundation head Natalia Arno, reported symptoms consistent with poisoning. At the last minute, Chashchilova said she was skipping the event to travel instead to Ukraine to interview victims of sexual violence by Russian soldiers. When Elena Trifonova, editor-in-chief of the media outlet Baikal People, later asked what had happened at the Berlin conference, Chashchilova answered only that she hadn’t attended. 

The “trip to Ukraine” in 2023 would prove to be another lie. Afterward, Chashchilova complained to journalists that a Ukrainian border guard turned out her suitcase and threatened to shoot her in the knees and tear up her passport. “He was incredibly rude,” she claimed. However, Chashchilova confessed to iStories that she never even went to Ukraine, saying she couldn’t get a visa. “I’m very ashamed that I misinformed you at the time — it was more, you know, a kind of embarrassed lie,” she said.

Chashchilova also lied about her family, telling friends and colleagues that her father is an influential figure in Khabarovsk’s state security services. iStories found him on social media, studied online leaked databases, and learned that 65-year-old Valery Pershin worked as a trucker and a locksmith. In 2000, he was convicted of document forgery. On the other hand, Valery’s brother, Vladimir, more closely fits Chashchilova’s description of a big-shot policeman in the family. For years, Vladimir Pershin headed the Internal Affairs Ministry’s regional anti-gang division. In 2016, after he quit the police, he was convicted of extortion. He scored early parole after agreeing with the Federal Security Service to be a primary witness in the case against former Khabarovsk Governor Sergey Furgal, who in February 2023 was sentenced to 22 years in prison on charges of ordering multiple hired killings.

When iStories asked Chashchilova about her uncle in December 2024, she said he was probably dead. When asked directly about Vladimir Pershin, she admitted their relationship but said she hadn’t seen him since childhood. Later still, she said she’d lived with him briefly as a college student while he helped her financially. She claimed not to know what he did professionally.

OVD-Info director Alexander Polivanov told journalists that the organization’s decision to part ways with Chashchilova wasn’t based on the iStories report, “but we knew it was being prepared, and it got us to look at her more carefully,” he said. After uncovering numerous instances of “deception and omissions,” OVD-Info cut ties with Chashchilova. “We couldn’t vouch for the accuracy of what Masha told us or our partners — and that made it impossible to work together,” Polivanov explained.

Last year, Chashchilova found a part-time job at the Conscientious Objectors’ Movement, where she coordinates the work of consultants who assist Russian men trying to avoid military service. The organization said in mid-January that it conducted a security check before hiring her and found “no grounds for distrust.”

Despite Chashchilova’s falsehoods and evasions, iStories found no evidence that she’s ever worked with Russia’s security forces or provided intelligence to the Russian authorities. At the same time, she has likely enjoyed access to highly sensitive personal information while working and volunteering at various human rights groups, such as Russia Behind Bars, the Russian LGBT Network, and the Moscow Community Center for LGBT+ Initiatives. In these roles, she frequently gave human rights commentary to media outlets (including iStories and Meduza) and became acquainted with dozens of Russian journalists, lawyers, and other activists.