‘Mom, you have no idea what they’re doing to me’ Russian prison officers are ‘honing their cruelty’ on Ukrainian POWs — then bringing their torture methods home
Russian prisons have long been notorious for widespread torture, but over the past three years, the problem has worsened significantly. Human rights advocates say this escalation is directly related to the full-scale war in Ukraine. One activist told the independent outlet Okno Media that police officers and prison guards “hone their cruelty” by torturing Ukrainian prisoners while serving in the military — then bring those same practices back to their civilian jobs. Meduza shares an abridged translation of Okno’s report.
On February 18, Yulia Sokolova learned that her 32-year-old son, Anton Valshevsky, had been arrested in Nizhneangarsk, a village in Russia’s Republic of Buryatia, on charges of illegal weapons possession. "I was working in Irkutsk at the time, but I had to return to Nizhneangarsk and hire a lawyer," Sokolova says. "When I found out about his arrest on February 22, I immediately went to see him. When I finally saw him, he looked completely off. He even had bruises on his face."
Initially, Anton tried to deny the abuse, insisting he hadn’t been tortured. But as Sokolova began to leave, he suddenly shouted, “Mom, you have no idea what they’re doing to me! They tape wires to my calves and torture me with electric shocks. They douse me with water and shock me in the back!” He went on to describe being tortured for three hours while Federal Security Service (FSB) officers filmed. As guards began to drag him away, Sokolova recalls, “He pulled up his pant legs and lifted his shirt. His whole back and stomach were covered in burns and marks from a stun gun. This wasn’t just a beating; this was torture.”
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In response, Sokolova filed complaints with the Russian Investigative Committee and the local prosecutor’s office. However, instead of investigating, the authorities barred her from visiting Anton in the detention center. “I hired a lawyer, but they won’t even let him see his client. They said, ‘You’re behaving improperly! You’re writing complaints about us,’” Sokolova explains. “The investigator is both the judge and the executioner.”
On February 22, Sokolova spent the entire night in the detention facility’s hallway, trying to get Anton examined by a doctor. “It’s crucial to document everything, but they won’t allow that,” she says. “Even higher authorities like the prosecutor’s office and Investigative Committee can’t do anything to intervene. I fought for an ambulance to be called for Anton, but I ended up calling it myself. The next day, they still wouldn’t let me in.”
The paramedics were finally allowed into the facility on the third day, but the police appear to have prevented them from documenting Anton’s injuries. “They just wrote ‘back pain’ for the bruises, burn marks, and stun gun marks on his legs,” Sokolova says. “It’s like a vicious circle.”
Later, Sokolova learned that FSB officers were responsible for the torture. "They do this, and they film it all. At the detention facility, I started shouting, ‘What makes you any different from criminals? You’re just like them, only you’re getting paid. Who gave you the right?’ Nobody gave them the right, but with their positions, they don’t ask anyone,” Sokolova says.
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A 2.5-fold increase
In late 2023, similar reports of electric shock torture emerged from employees of the Emergency Situations Ministry (MChS) in the neighboring Irkutsk region. In Angarsk, OMON (riot police) officers abducted two MChS drivers, Sergey Mironov and Roman Bozhedomov, and tortured them to force them to confess to beating a colleague.
“When we arrived with Mironov’s mother and a lawyer, we could hear screams and moans through the door,” recalls human rights activist Pavel Glushchenko. “Both drivers were handcuffed, forced to kneel, and shocked with a stun gun. Bozhedomov had burns on his buttocks, while Mironov was shocked on his back and legs. They even shoved a hockey stick under Mironov’s knees, causing intense pain and ligament strain.”
The drivers filed a complaint with the regional Investigative Committee, but no case was opened against the police. The officers accused of abuse continued to serve in their positions for about a year, while Mironov and Bozhedomov were retroactively fired from MChS. In July 2024, the criminal case against the two rescue workers was sent to court, despite their claims that their confessions had been obtained through torture and the lack of any other evidence.
It wasn’t until November 2024 — over a year after the two men first reported the torture — that a criminal case was opened against the OMON officers. In the latest court hearing in December 2024, it was revealed that two of the three officers accused of torture had signed contracts with the Defense Ministry and gone to war to avoid prosecution. Only one of the accused, a now-retired officer, remains on trial.
“This is systemic. It doesn’t matter what region you’re in. Waterboarding, bags over heads, stun guns, rape — their methods are more or less the same everywhere,” human rights activist Vladimir (last name withheld to protect his identity) tells Okno. “Torture has increased over the past three years, and it’s gotten worse. The number of complaints has risen roughly 2.2 to 2.5 times, but even fewer of these cases are reaching the Investigative Committee, prosecutors, or courts than before the war.”
According to Vladimir, victims are now more afraid to report torture. “The monsters in uniform have become more vicious,” he explains. “There’s a general increase in hostility within the investigative and judicial systems, and torture has become more concealed because there’s no investigation or exposure.”
Another key factor, Vladimir says, is the experience law enforcement officers gain while serving in the military:
We’re seeing embittered law enforcement returning from the frontlines. Since March 2022, there’s been a separate category of torture — the assembly lines against Ukrainian prisoners of war. De facto, the Russian Federation, with the help of the FSB and FSIN (Federal Penitentiary Service), is committing crimes against humanity. FSIN special forces are honing their cruelty on POWs, and in the process, they’re fully degenerating. They’ve become desensitized to inhuman torture, and they carry out these acts without consequence. Unlike POWs, civilian victims sometimes go public, but even then, many are too afraid. These officers return to Russia and unleash the methods they’ve refined on Ukrainian prisoners.
Vladimir adds that, in addition to Anton Valshevsky, at least three other detainees were tortured at the detention center in Nizhneangarsk. The family of one victim had initially agreed to speak to journalists but later changed their mind.
“We’re afraid. We’d have to speak about everything, and some of the torture was particularly humiliating for our Caucasian diaspora,” a relative of one victim says, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Other sources point out that the Russian Interior Ministry and the FSIN are currently understaffed. “Nobody stays in their positions anymore,” they tell Okno, adding that the agencies are hiring anyone available. On March 5, Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev complained to Putin about mass resignations among police, saying that over the course of 2024, half of experienced officers left the service.
“As a result, those joining the FSIN and Interior Ministry are people hardened by war, and we’re seeing the third wave of cruelty in Russian security forces,” recalls Vladimir. “The previous ones happened after Afghanistan and the Chechen Wars. There was a certain decline in brutality after that, and maybe the safest period was when this torture started to become public. But now we’ve entered a new wave of cruelty.”
Cover picture: Dmitry Feoktistov / TASS / Profimedia