Editing Philipp Budeikin (section)

== Aftermath ==
He claimed that he invented the Blue Whale game in 2013. He said his intention was to cleanse society by pushing persons to suicide whom he deemed as having no value. When he pushed children to commit suicide, he told them not to be scared, telling them: 'I'll gather you all together in a squad up in the sky.'

Although originally claiming innocence and stating he was "just having fun", Budeikin was arrested and held in Kresty Prison, Saint Petersburg, and in May 2016 pled guilty to "inciting at least 16 teenage girls to commit suicide". He was later convicted on two counts of inciting suicide of a minor.

For his crime, Philipp was sentenced to three years in prison, and was incarcerated at Moscow. He was released in March 2019, where he returned to Solnechnogorsk to pursue his career as a sound engineer.