Director, Community of Investigative Journalists – Fond 19/29. Journalist, writer, film-maker, ecologist and human rights activist. Graduate of the Journalism School of Lviv Military Academy he started his career as a military correspondent of the Boyevaya Vakhta (Battle Watch), the in-house newspaper of the Russian Pacific Fleet and became known for his stories critical of the Russian military polluting the ocean. He had disclosed the dumping of nuclear waste by the Russian Navy in the Sea of Japan in 1993. In November 1997, Pasko was arrested in Vladivostok by Russian Federal Security Service (FSB). He was accused of espionage for his publications on environmental problems in the Japanese sea, but initially was convicted only for two points of accusation (from sixty). He was found guilty of «abuse of his official position» and released immediately under a general amnesty. In 2000 he left military service. In 2001 after Vladimir Putin, the KGB native, became Russian president Pasko was re-accused of «high treason» and convicted for four years in prison of which he served two. He was recognized as a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International.
Getting out of prison Pasko entered the Law School of the Russian Humanitarian University. He then worked as a staff writer in Novaya Gazeta, as the Editor-in-Chief of the «Ecology and Law» and «Grad Piati Morei» (Grad of Five Seas) magazines. In 2004–2005 he participated in a research program at the Kennan Institute (Galina Starovoitova Fellow on Human Rights and Conflict Resolution, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars). Author and producer of documentaries on ecologic problems “Zone of High Risk”, “Buried at Sea”, author of the books “Appointed a Spy”, “The Color of Times”, “Honigkuchen”, “Die Rote Zone”.
In 2009 Pasko became one of the founders of the first in Russia Blogger School (joint project of the Glasnost Defense Foundation (Russia) and the Center of Journalism Education (USA).
In 2010–2015 Pasko conducted the special course on investigative journalism at the Journalism School, Moscow State University. Since 2011 he has been organizing training seminars for investigative journalists and bloggers in the Russian regions.
Pasko is a winner of the international «Press Freedom Award»; of the Alfred Toepfer Pushkin award; Erich Maria Remarque award; «Ecology of Russia-98» award; Reporters sans Frontier award; Ischia International Journalism Award ‑2019.