“My charge is a prison regime screw‑up in itself”. Political prisoners moved to supposedly “lighter” prisons are isolated in cold dark cells for months

“Two days in quarantine, three weeks in SHIZO,” wrote Igor Paskar about his arrival to penal colony IK-2 in Asino, Tomsk region, in Siberia. In November 2025, he was transferred there from Yeniseysk prison, where he had served the first years of his sentence for two anti-war actions: setting fire to a pro-war banner and throwing a petrol bomb at the stone porch of the local Federal Security Service (FSB) headquarters in Krasnodar.

The term “prison” (тюрьма) in the Russian penitentiary system refers to a cell-based supermax equivalent where inmates are locked inside small concrete rooms 24 hours a day; most sentences are being served in “penal colonies”, where prisoners live communally, in barracks. With a transfer to a penal colony, conditions are supposed to ease, but this does not happen for political prisoners. As Mediazona has found out, upon arriving at a colony, they are first met with stints in a SHIZO, a small isolation cell. Next comes a PKT (a “cell-type facility”), where conditions are barely any better. This can be followed by a transfer to an EPKT (a “unified cell-type facility”) with even stricter isolation. And, finally, a return back to the “krytka”, to the harshest prison conditions.

Forty-nine-year-old Paskar was sent to SHIZO almost immediately for refusing to do morning exercises, then his stint was extended for lying down on a bench, and after three infractions, he was labelled a “repeat violator” and transferred to a PKT for six months.

“They told me that after the isolation cell, I would be headed straight for SUS, but now, it turns out, I still have to earn that through exemplary behaviour (and some unprecedented feat, I suppose),” Paskar wrote regarding this. “Anyway, for now, they have sent me to a PKT, something in between SHIZO and a ‘krytka’. <…> They said I’ve been given six months in the PKT, and if there are no screw-ups, then SUS. I think to myself: my charge is already a screw-up”.

Paskar is one of the first political prisoners convicted after the invasion of Ukraine to have served part of his sentence in a prison and subsequently been transferred to a colony. By law, men convicted of several “terrorist” offences must spend the first part of their sentences in prison.

Currently, dozens of political prisoners are being held in each of the seven Russian “krytkas”, as inmates call these prisons. According to estimates by the Russian human rights group Memorial, over the four years of the war, the charge of a “terrorist act”, along with “high treason”, have become the most common in political cases.

At the same time as Paskar, 37-year-old Vyacheslav Lutor, a former bank employee from St Petersburg, who received 10 years over his correspondence with the “Freedom of Russia Legion”, a paramilitary unit of Russians fighting for Ukraine, also arrived at a penal colony. From a prison in Yelets, Lutor was transferred to IK-6 in Lipetsk, some 3,500 km away from Paskar’s colony. But Lutor, too, was repeatedly sent to SHIZO, declared a “repeat violator”, and transferred to a PKT for six months.

This same path is now reserved for other political prisoners convicted after the invasion of Ukraine, who only began arriving at colonies across Russia from prisons in 2025.

The first circle. SHIZO: torture by cold and boredom in a stone box

Igor Paskar found himself in SHIZO on his third day after arriving at the colony. The pretext was his refusal to do morning exercises. He explained that in quarantine, other inmates had told him that morning exercises were optional. “I decided not to stand out among the convicts and also not to do the exercises,” Paskar recounted. He was the only one penalised for it.

His first stint in SHIZO lasted seven days. Following that, Paskar was given another seven days for lying down on a bench. According to him, at Yeniseysk prison, in such cases, they would first warn you to get up, and you could only be punished for ignoring the demand. In the colony, there was no warning. A third term, another five days, was given because he lay down on the bench while already in the SHIZO cell. For all this, Paskar was deemed a “repeat violator of the regime” and transferred to a PKT for six months.

Under regular conditions in a colony, inmates live in units located in barracks-type buildings and can move freely during the day; SHIZO section consists of cells. Moreover, the space standard there is half that of a pre-trial detention centre: not four square metres per person, but only two. In SHIZO, visits, phone calls, buying groceries, and receiving parcels are prohibited. An outdoor walk in a small yard with high concrete or metal walls and a grate overhead is limited to one hour a day.

Inmates are stripped of almost all their belongings and issued a special uniform stamped with “SHIZO”; only a toothbrush, toothpaste, and a book are allowed. During the day, the bed is folded up, and sitting is only permitted on a bench bolted to the floor at a table bolted to the floor. Often, these are semi-basement cells with almost no sunlight, lit internally by a dim lamp.

“You could feel your eyesight deteriorating from that lighting. For some, 10 days in SHIZO is basically just a change of scenery, roughly speaking, but when it’s more than 15 days, it becomes torture and a loss of health,” recalls performance artist and former political prisoner Pavel Krisevich. Throughout his entire sentence, he only ended up in SHIZO at IK-5 in the village of Metallostroy once, for four days.

Viktor Filinkov, convicted in the “Network” case—a controversial terrorism case against left-wing activists launched before the war—spent more than 200 days in SHIZO, almost entirely in solitary confinement. The hardest part, according to him, was not the isolation itself, but the inability to find things to do. “In SHIZO itself, what stressed me out the most was the lack of opportunity to study, write letters, and receive letters,” he recalls.

According to internal regulations, inmates’ stationery items in SHIZO are kept by a prison inspector and issued only for writing letters, “in accordance with the daily schedule” set by the colony’s administration. At IK-1 in Orenburg, where Filinkov served time, this meant about one hour in the evening—and even then, not always: “This hour is literally just to lay out the letters on the table. If I read, I read 20–30 pages in an hour. So you have to choose: either read or write.”

One hour for letters, one hour for a walk, eight hours for sleep—leaving another 14 hours in the cell empty. They had to be filled with whatever possible: physical exercises, attempts to doze, meditation, or mental exercises like repeating English words. A separate issue: the cold, sleep deprivation, and weakness. Sleeping during the day in SHIZO is not allowed, and at night, according to Filinkov, sleep was never enough anyway. When the cell grew cold, he had to keep moving constantly even if he had almost no strength left for it: doing pushups, squats, calf raises.

SHIZO is especially tough for smokers. In colonies, smoking is usually allowed in designated areas, but in the punishment isolation cell, smoking is forbidden both in the cell and during the walk. For people used to smoking several times a day, this becomes yet another form of physical and psychological pressure.

Upon arriving from prisons, other defendants in political cases involving “terrorism” and “treason” charges (as well as Ukrainian prisoners of war convicted by Russian courts) faced this same pressure in colonies across various regions. This was experienced, for instance, by:

• Vladimir Sergeyev (eight years for the idea to set fire to a police van in protest against the war). He wrote from Omsk’s IK-6, where he ended up after the “krytka”, that he had spent three consecutive months in SHIZO.

• Dmitry Lyamin (eight years for a scorched enlistment office window). He spent over 70 days in SHIZO at IK-1 in Kostroma.

• Ivan Kudryashov (four years and 10 months for a conversation about setting fire to an enlistment office). In May, he wrote from Tver’s IK-1 that he had been in SHIZO for five months.

• Denis Narolsky from Crimea (18 years for desertion after mobilisation and corresponding with Ukrainians). He has been continuously held in SHIZO at IK-4 in Tomsk since June 2025. In the same colony, after arriving from prison, Danil Mukhametov and Georgy Kamlash also ended up in SHIZO for extended periods.

• And many others: aside from those listed, similar cases are known in colonies in the Ryazan, Tver, Kirov, Orenburg, Novosibirsk, Kemerovo, and Irkutsk regions, as well as the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug.

And it is not only Russian political prisoners, but also Ukrainian prisoners of war convicted by courts in Russia. For example, Hlib Petruk, a captain of the Armed Forces of Ukraine captured in Mariupol, said in a letter from Krasnoyarsk’s IK-31 that after a week in quarantine, he “went into SHIZO for a first violation” and never came out.

“So, basically, everything is exactly as we expected; it’s undesirable for me to be in the general population, the reason is clear anyway,” he wrote. According to Petruk, in SHIZO he was given a book and writing materials twice a day for an hour, the radio played in the cell from wake-up to lights-out, and smoking was strictly forbidden. In -34°C frosts, during their walk, Ukrainians had to walk briskly around the yard without stopping “just so as not to freeze to death”.

After several stints in SHIZO, the colony’s administration gains the right to classify a person as a “repeat violator of the regime”. Following this, they are automatically transferred to strict conditions of confinement (SUS), a separate unit isolated from the rest of the colony. There, people are permitted fewer parcels and visits, and they can spend smaller amounts on purchases at the shop.

But in practice, before that happens, political prisoners whose lives jailers want to make as difficult as possible often pass through another circle of isolation: cell-type facilities, or PKT. The severity of these conditions does not differ much from the punishment isolation cell, but they can last significantly longer.

The second circle. PKT: The same stone box, but with a bedside table

In mid-December, “repeat violator” Paskar was transferred to a PKT. He described the cell as a two-person room, but he lived there alone. The main difference between this place and the punishment isolation cell is the duration of the punishment. While someone can be sent to SHIZO for a maximum of 15 days, here they can be sent for up to six months. In practice, colony administrators often hand down this maximum term straight away. This happened to both Igor Paskar and Vyacheslav Lutor: both received six months in a PKT shortly after arriving at the colony.

“Unlike the ‘krytka’, there are no plug sockets or hot water, but a plus is that it’s cleaner, larger, and they don’t take away your books for the day,” Paskar wrote, describing his cell. “Somewhere in the distance, a radio plays music. The isolation is like when I was sitting with the Ukrainians in the basement in Rostov. Honestly, I’ve already got used to it”.

Sergey Ganin from Nizhny Novgorod (nine years over his involvement with the Ukrainian Volunteer Corps) also received four months in a PKT after a string of SHIZO stints where he did not get out even for half a day. “This is all automatic, without leaving the cell; they just bring the orders,” he wrote.

By law, people there have the right to walk for an hour and a half every day, receive one parcel or package every six months, and also—with the administration’s permission—have one short-term visit. They cannot spend more than 6,500 roubles (about $90) a month on groceries and basic necessities in the prison shop.

Life in the cell-type premises differs little from the punishment isolation cell. These are the same cells with a minimal set of “furniture”. Inmates often say that the only noticeable difference is the presence of a bedside table.

Viktor Filinkov from the “Network” case says that in his instance, the transfer to a PKT did not initially involve changing cells at all: he was kept in the punishment isolation cell, they simply placed a bedside table in there. Sergey Ganin also recalled this: “My cell is the same, whether it’s SHIZO or PKT, I just change my uniform with the writing on the back from ‘SHIZO’ to ‘PKT’.”

The conditions there can turn out to be even worse than in the prisons from which this wave of political prisoners arrives at the colonies. “Yeniseysk prison is much more comfortable. At least there’s hot water there and you can make yourself some tea,” Paskar wrote.

Former political prisoner Ivan Lyubshin says that much depends on the specific cell and the colony’s administration, but in any case, the person spends almost all their time in a confined space: “It’s a tiny room, and you live in it.”

Formally, more is permitted in this tiny room than in SHIZO: you can bring books, newspapers, or magazines, hygiene products, and a set of underwear. You can smoke—but only during the outdoor walk. Stationery, documents, cigarettes, groceries, dishware, and bath accessories must be kept separately by the staff; they are issued only upon the inmate’s request and for a strictly limited time.

This also applies to food. Unlike in SHIZO, inmates in a PKT can buy tea, coffee, sweets, and other food items from the prison shop. But they cannot be stored in the cell: all groceries must be kept by the staff, and they can only be received during mealtimes—and only following a written request submitted the day before.

This turns even the simplest things into a torture of bureaucratic procedure. “In the evening, I had to write an application: for breakfast: tea, for lunch: this and that,” recalls Viktor Filinkov. Staff initially refused to fulfil requests, citing the formal procedure for reviewing applications—up to 30 days. Only after complaints and arguments did the administration start issuing provisions at least three times a day.

Several months in such conditions is still not the end. The next level of pressure is unified cell-type facilities (EPKT). This is a separate facility with its own chief and infrastructure, where “repeat violators” from different colonies are brought—usually, there is one for an entire region.

The third circle. EPKT: A prison within a prison

So far, there is no information about wartime Russian political prisoners who have already been sent to this “third circle”. But such threats are being voiced—this path was promised, for example, to Dmitry Lyamin, who was convicted of setting fire to an enlistment office.

“They won’t bump me up to the camp, not even to SUS—strictly SHIZO or PKT-EPKT,” he recounted in a letter, passing on the words of the colony staff. “Whether you observe the regime or not, they’ll quickly write up reports in a flash because of my charge, that’s how they’ll keep me”. He didn’t end up in an EPKT either, but for a different reason: after more than 70 days in the punishment isolation cell, Lyamin was taken from the colony to a pre-trial detention centre on a new criminal case: he was alleged to have coerced another inmate into joining the ranks of the “Russian Volunteer Corps” or “Freedom of Russia Legion”.

But Ukrainian citizens convicted on “terrorist” and “espionage” charges are already being sent to EPKTs (such cases are already known at least in the Irkutsk region).

By law, conditions there are virtually indistinguishable from a PKT: the same cells with a bedside table, the same right to a daily walk, restricted spending on food and basic necessities, and rare parcels and packages.

The main difference is the term length. A person can be sent to an EPKT cell for up to one year.

Furthermore, an EPKT is often a different facility altogether; the inmate is transferred there from “their” colony, which means they are confronted with a new prison administration and new orders and rules. Viktor Filinkov, who was sent to the EPKT at IK-5 in Novotroitsk in 2021, says this felt like the key difference: “It could be a different [prison]. And there, everything could turn out to be either significantly worse or significantly better”.

Filinkov was lucky, and in his case, conditions turned out to be easier than in the colony in Orenburg. But often, it is quite the reverse, and one can end up in a facility with an even harsher regime.

The most notorious example is the torturous EPKT-31 in the Krasnoyarsk region, where “repeat violators” from various colonies across the region were brought. Former inmates and lawyers have spoken about systematic beatings, water torture, and stun guns occurring there from the early 2000s up until at least 2020. For inmates, a transfer there was so terrifying that some tried to avoid it at any cost by slitting their wrists and driving “spikes” into their bodies.

Why the penitentiary does this. “We need to report that control is being tightened”

Until recently, this practice was only applied selectively against those who, for some reason, displeased the administration or were subjected to pressure upon the orders of higher-ranking security officials. Well-known examples include writer Boris Stomakhin, Crimean anarchist Yevgeny Karakashev, Viktor Filinkov from the “Network” case, and politicians Vladimir Kara-Murza and Alexei Navalny. For the majority of political prisoners, even those convicted under especially grave charges, this was not the norm.

Now the situation is changing. This pressure scheme is already being consistently applied to those convicted of “terrorist” offences who are transferred to colonies after several years in prison. The very charge of the indictment is perceived by the administration as grounds for continuous tightening of confinement conditions, regardless of the political prisoner’s actual actions.

At the same time, people convicted under the same charges in previous years generally continue serving their sentences under the old conditions—the new practices are applied precisely to wartime political prisoners sentenced after February 24, 2022.

And almost exclusively to men: among women, only isolated instances of placement in SHIZO and PKTs are known. For example, journalist Nika Novak, convicted for her work for a Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty project on charges of “confidential cooperation with a foreign organisation”, lives continuously in such conditions.

The same is happening with Ukrainian citizens convicted of “terrorism”, “espionage” charges, or accused of war crimes. But communication with the outside world for such prisoners is often non-existent: they have no relatives in Russia, letters do not get through, or there is simply no one to write them. As a result, what happens to them becomes known only sporadically—for instance, from the letters of other inmates or through human rights defenders.

Other categories of wartime political prisoners – convicted, for example, in cases of “spreading fake news about the army”, “discrediting the army”, or “justifying terrorism”—as a rule, do not yet face such isolation (though there have been isolated cases here as well).

Why jailers across the country have begun to systematically worsen conditions specifically for new convicts under “terrorism” and “treason” charges is not entirely clear. There are no official clarifications, nor are there confirmed directives at the level of the central apparatus of the Federal Penitentiary Service.

Human rights defender Anna Karetnikova, former lead analyst for the Moscow branch of the FSIN, allows that this might not be a direct order to endlessly put people in SHIZO, but rather a directive with a vaguer wording: “tighten control” or “prevent the spread of terrorist ideology”.

“And then on the intercom, a boss might ask a facility: how many ‘terrorists’ do you have? Have they all been in SHIZO? Something like that. You have to report that control is being tightened,” Karetnikova explains.

According to her, the practice can also form horizontally, through informal imitation between colonies. “One warden asks another: ‘What are you doing with the terrorists? How have you tightened things up?’ — ‘I’ve isolated them all.’ — ‘Cool! Then that’s what I’ll do too,’ ” she says, describing the possible logic.

Isolation becomes a universal tool: a way to report on “tightening control” and, at the same time, a form of pressure where the very fact of a sentence under certain articles is perceived as sufficient grounds for worsening confinement conditions.

Editor: Egor Skovoroda