Former convicts disclose shocking truths about Russian prisons

• An insider leaked recordings of similar abuse last year from Russian prisons.
• Violence is sanctioned by jail officials and used to extort, threaten, or coerce confessions.
• Russian government has reacted to high-profile releases of incriminating film.

Former detainees have told the BBC that they were routinely raped and tortured in Russian prisons. An insider leaked recordings of similar abuse last year, and now victims have told the BBC why it occurs and how they are fighting for justice.

This article includes descriptions of sexual assault and violence.

Last year, recordings of horrible prisoner torture were smuggled to a human rights organization and reported on by the world media from Saratov Prison Hospital in south-west Russia.

Before being moved there in 2018 as part of a six-year sentence for assault, Alexei Makarov was aware of its notoriety. Prisoners transferred to Saratov from other regional facilities have reported that medical reasons were manufactured in order for them to be tortured behind closed doors. Prisons in Russia have practically no independent control, and prison clinics, with their strict health quarantine restrictions, are far worse.

Makarov was actually ill – he had been diagnosed with tuberculosis – and hoped to be spared. But he claims he was raped twice while there.

According to victims and experts, the violence suffered by Makarov and others is always sanctioned by jail officials and is used to extort, threaten, or coerce confessions from convicts.

The Russian government has been compelled to react to the country’s torture controversy as a result of high-profile releases of incriminating film. According to the independent Russian media initiative Proekt, torture was recorded in 90% of Russia’s regions between 2015 and 2019.

However, progress has been gradual. The BBC examined hundreds of court papers from that time period and discovered that 41 members of the prison service were found guilty in the most severe prisoner mistreatment convictions. However, almost half of them received simply suspended sentences. The BBC interviewed ex-prisoners, including Makarov, about their experiences in Russia’s prison system.

Makarov claims he was tortured for the first time in February 2020. He claims that three guys tortured him to constant severe sexual assault after he refused to confess to an alleged conspiracy against the jail administration.

“For 10 minutes they beat me, ripped my clothes. And for, let’s say, the next two hours they raped me every other minute with mop handles.

“When I fainted, they would splash me with cold water and throw me back onto the table.”

It occurred again two months later. He was forced to pay 50,000 rubles (£735) to his assailants and claims he was raped in order to stay quiet about it.

Makarov told the BBC that his abuse in jail had been videotaped. Prisoners are aware that if they do not comply with the requests, the humiliating film would be disseminated with the whole jail.

The rapists were other convicts who, according to Makarov and others, were acting on orders from prison officials.

Makarov claims that during torture incidents, music would be played at maximum volume to drown out the cries.

Last year’s breach of Saratov film was made public with the assistance of another former detainee at the facility. Sergey Savelyev smuggled out video of humiliation and brutality against hundreds of convicts. He also thinks that torture is sanctioned at the highest levels of government as part of a well-organized system.

Savelyev got access to the film since he was assigned to the prison’s security department, which was understaffed. He was tasked with monitoring and cataloguing video from the bodycams often worn by jail guards.

He did, however, tell the BBC that when it came to torturing a prisoner in Saratov, the guards would encourage convicts to perform the dirty job – and urge them to wear bodycams to record the torture.

“I would get orders [to issue bodycams] from the head of security,” he says.

He was subsequently instructed to preserve the recorded film of some of these attacks to show to the security department, and on occasion to transfer it onto a disc to present to more senior employees.

When he realised what was going on behind closed doors, he began copying and concealing the information.

“To simply walk past and do nothing is to recognise it as normal.”

In several of the videos, the torturers are shown wearing handcuffs, which, like body cameras, are only supplied to prison employees.

According to Savelyev, the convicts who commit the abuse are often individuals who have been convicted of severe crimes and are therefore serving lengthy terms. As a result, they want to gain favour with the authorities in order to be treated better, he claims. Such detainees are frequently dubbed “pressovschiki.”

“They should be interested in doing well during this period, wanting the administration to be loyal, so that they can eat well, sleep well and have some privileges,”  Savelyev says.

The horrifying process followed by the torturers, shown in one specific tape, implies they are well-practiced, according to activist Vladimir Osechkin, whose organisation Gulagu.net released the secret footage.

“They are giving signs to each other, acting in silent concert, understanding each other even without words because they are following a well-established system. [The man in shot] gives signs on how to twist or spread the man’s legs so that they can rape him.”

Six pressovschiki were detained when Savelyev leaked the material, although they denied any involvement. Two months later, the director of the Saratov prison hospital and his deputy were detained; both denied any involvement in the torture seen in the films.

Russian President Vladimir Putin fired the director of the national prison service and said that “systematic steps” were required to effect reform. Last month, the country’s legislation was updated to include harsh penalties for committing torture to abuse authority or obtain evidence.

However, human rights campaigners point out that torture as a separate crime is still not criminalised.

President Putin has made similar promises in the past. Following the first devastating revelation of such tape in 2018, which showed guards carrying out mass beatings in a jail in Yaroslavl, north of Moscow, he made a similar vow.

In 2020, eleven Yaroslavl prison staff received light terms, while their two superiors were acquitted.

According to lawyer Yulia Chvanova, who specialises in defending torture victims, the authorities’ reliance on confessions, regardless of guilt, is the fundamental incentive for organised mistreatment of inmates. As a consequence, she claims, personnel in charge of investigating crime are the principal perpetrators of torture in Russian prisons.

“Confessions [are put] first and foremost.”

She is attempting to get compensation for Anton Romashov, 22, who was tortured in 2017 after refusing to confess to crimes he did not commit.

Romashov had been jailed for marijuana possession, but police were forcing him to confess to drug distribution, a far more severe offence. In late 2016, he was brought to a pre-trial detention centre in Vladimir, western Russia, after refusing to confess.

“I was taken to [cell] number 26. I knew exactly what kind of cell it was… because I heard screams coming from there, screams for days on end.”

Two guys were waiting for him there. He claims he was pushed to the ground and had his hands and feet bound behind his back before being pummelling for a full day. He replied he’d sign anything they wanted when they pulled his pants down. Despite informing the court that he had been tortured into confessing, he was sentenced to five years in prison.

After another prisoner killed one of the pressovschiki and threatened to torture him, an inquiry into activities at the Vladimir detention centre was launched. When requested to submit comments, prison employees stated that the majority of them were aware of what was going on in the notorious cell 26. The prison staff in charge of the torture cell was convicted at a trial in which Anton and two other detainees testified.

However, the country’s largest torture scandal occurred in the Siberian region of Irkutsk. Following a demonstration in spring 2020 in Prison 15 in Angarsk, near Irkutsk, the authorities sent the riot squad. Hundreds of detainees were picked up and transferred to two detention centres, where prison authorities and pressovschiki were waiting.

Denis Pokusaev, who was serving a three-year term for fraud when he claims he was tortured at the centre, claims the prison employees were explicit about why they were being punished.

“[They] told me: ‘Do you think we care whether you are guilty or not? You came from a riot – so you are going to be held accountable for that.'”

Yulia Chvanova, a lawyer, discusses the usual sequence of occurrences.

“[Investigators] determine who to question, which witnesses to question, and what investigations to perform… They then call the jail personnel and say, ‘I need a confession from a certain individual.’

According to Pokusaev, the harassment was persistent.

“The abuse went on for almost three months every day, except weekends.”

He claims that personnel were present during the torture sessions.

“They laughed, ate fruit… A person is being raped with all sorts of objects… And they just laugh, they enjoy it.”

The BBC enquired with the Russian prison service about reports of torture and rape in the country’s prisons and detention facilities. It made no response.

According to human rights groups, at least 350 inmates were tortured after the riots.

Pokusaev is one of around 30 men who have acquired the right to be legally recognized as victims of the tragedy, and he is one of the few willing to testify in court. The inquiry is likely to yield many trials. In Denis’s case, he and a few other convicts are about to testify against two prison personnel, neither of whom has accepted the allegations levelled against them.

Yulia and all witnesses in the case have been had to sign a non-disclosure agreement. It is uncertain if any of the results will result in significant transformation.

Pokusaev claims that what occurred to him is still haunting him.

“I come to a forest next to our house almost every day. And I scream obscenities, shout this all out to avoid keeping it inside me.”

But he is determined to seek justice. He feels it is feasible if individuals are willing to speak out.

“Right now, people [in Russia] are afraid to come out and say anything… that’s why people don’t achieve anything.”

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