A Garbage response. Russian prison sends Shirley Manson bureaucratic boilerplate, omitting name of hunger‑striking activist she appealed for

Mikhail Kriger, a 65-year-old Moscow activist, was sentenced in 2023 to seven years in prison on charges of “justifying terrorism” and “inciting hatred” amid anti-war protests. According to investigators, he called for Vladimir Putin to be hanged and spoke of “threatening the lives of FSB officers” on social media. 

During his trial, Kriger was defiant, stating in his closing argument that he truly dreams of living to see “Putin’s hanging.” He maintains that the posts were merely a pretext for his prosecution, which he says is retaliation for his consistent “anti-war and outwardly pro-Ukrainian position,” which he has never hidden. After his conviction, he was transferred to IK-5 in the Oryol region to serve his sentence.

On September 25, Kriger declared a hunger strike to protest what he describes as a deliberate campaign of isolation by the prison administration. He has been repeatedly placed in a SHIZO, an isolation punishment cell, or a slightly more relaxed isolation cell (his brother describes the distinction as is meaningless, as both amount to solitary confinement). 

The prison administration has officially justified this isolation, claiming the they have “information about risks to his life and health” were he held with other inmates, and that he is therefore being kept in a “safe place.” Kriger himself insists he is under no threat from other prisoners and describes the move as a deliberate campaign of pressure from the administration.

He escalated his protest on October 9 by starting a “dry” hunger strike, refusing water. On October 23, Kriger’s support group announced that he had ended his “dry” hunger strike: “Misha has returned to a so-called ‘wet’ hunger strike, meaning he is drinking water again. He is drinking boiling water, sweet tea. He does not plan to start eating.” The group also relayed that his physical state was assessed as “very good.” “Health is all good, not planning to die, ‘we will live’,” the message concluded.

Shirley Manson, the lead singer of Garbage, sent a public letter to the prison’s head, Maxim Prilepsky, on October 14, noting that the hunger strike was a “desperate act by a man deprived of humane treatment and of the most basic human contact.” “Such measures, I believe, do not serve justice or order,” she wrote. Now, she received a response filled with stuffy bureaucratese but no substance.

Shortly after Manson, a second letter was sent by actors Martin Sheen, Janet Sheen, and John Cusack, along with philosopher Slavoj Žižek. They echoed Manson’s concerns, asking prison chief “as a person capable of compassion and moral choice” to stop Kriger’s isolation and allow him to serve his sentence among the general prison population.

Kriger family troubles extend beyond Mikhail’s imprisonment. His nephew, Artyom Kriger, worked as a journalist for the independent outlet Sota.vision, covering protests and political trials in Moscow. In April 2025, Artyom and three other journalists were sentenced to five and a half years in prison for “participating” in Alexei Navalny’s banned-as-“extremist” Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK).