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1/ At least 50,000 Russian convicts have joined the Russian army, with tens of thousands dying in battles in Ukraine. Convicts are still joining, but what makes them want to risk death? Prisoners say that sadistic treatment in penal colonies makes war preferable to prison. ⬇️
2/ Many of the Russian convicts who went to war in Ukraine were imprisoned in the Omsk region, where jails have a reputation for extreme brutality, even by Russian standards. The independent Russian media project 'Window' has been speaking with former inmates.
3/ One prisoner, Andrei, was held for a time in a pre-trial detention centre in Omsk while serving a 14-year sentence for drug offences. The facility, known as SIZO-3, was closed in 2014 after a campaign by human rights activists exposed a litany of brutal treatment. He recalls:
4/ "It was a terrible place: people were brought in transit and immediately began to be 'broken'. Electric shocks to all parts, suffocation with a bag, hanging – absolutely Gestapo methods.
5/ "And most importantly, there was no sense in this violence. [It was] animalistic, senseless cruelty on the part of employees who seemed to have gone mad.
6/ "Perhaps this is what distinguishes the colonies of the Omsk region from many other terrible places in the federal penitentiary system: very often there is no sense in torture, inexplicable sadism reigns there."
7/ In Omsk's IK-7 prison, where dissident Vladimir Kara-Murza was held until recently, Andrei was kept in solitary confinement for three years. He contracted tuberculosis and was transferred to the prison hospital, but even there he was kept in solitary.
8/ "They sent me to psychiatry, where you also sit in solitude. There you sit in a box where they lock you. By and large, it’s the same cell [as a solitary confinement unit], only the bed is not fastened to the wall. In general, solitude is a practice of Omsk institutions."
9/ IK-7 already had an evil reputation in the prison system, which was "why the prisoners arrived already depressed, they were afraid in advance. At the same time, torture, of course, remained on a smaller scale. For example, torture with music. I still hate the radio.
10/ "They turned it up insanely loud. They could put three different wavelengths on different receivers at the same time. Three sources of sound at the same time – unbearable.
11/ "Personally, they tortured me with electricity. They connect wires to you. They have some kind of machine for generating electricity, but you can’t see it because there’s a bag on your head. They put a cotton swab with ammonia under your nose, or none at all.
12/ "They connect wires to your genitals. They can hang you from the ceiling. For a long time, first by one hand, then the other – they fasten you to the wall. Every two hours they walk around, changing your hand so that it doesn’t go numb too much...
13/ "For example, we had an employee there who had a favorite saying: like, we need to connect an electric current to your balls so that no one else will be born from you bastards."
14/ Kara-Murza, who was recently freed in a prisoner swap with the West, says that the regime at prison hospital 11 in the Omsk region was the worst he had encountered while imprisoned. He calls the prison system there "something between a camp and a madhouse".
15/ "There were constant searches there at every step, literally every 50 meters. Hands behind your back. Face to the wall. You can't look at anyone. Every morning, officers come into the cell with huge wooden hammers and conduct a full search."
16/ Starting in late 2022, prisoners from the IK-7 prison colony and its neighbour IK-6 began to be recruited by the Wagner Group and subsequently the Russian Ministry of Defence to fight in Ukraine. According to Andrei, this is still going on but there are fewer left to recruit.
17/ "One of my friends from the 'seven' [IK-7] went to the front in 2022. Another one, with whom we shared a cell in 2016, also left. In the first days at the front, his head was torn off. And the first one returned after serving for six months. They are still taking them.
18/ "In general, now prisoners envy those recruited by Prigozhin. Then you held out for six months and returned with a pardon. Now you will fight until you die or until the war ends.
19/ "The prisoners themselves tell me that if in 2022 they took 200-300 convicts there once a month, now they take 20-30. There is no one left to transport."
20/ A Chechen man, Malkho Bisultanov, also went to IK-7 on drugs charges which he says were fabricated. He says that the reputation of the Omsk prisons was so bad that wealthy prisoners would pay bribes to avoid getting sent there.