A PR specialist from Yekaterinburg, a major city in the Urals, has experienced paralysis of part of their face and inflammation of a facial nerve while in the penal colony.

The PR specialist from Yekaterinburg, Yaroslav Shirshikov, developed inflammation of a facial nerve in the penal colony, resulting in paralysis of the right side of his face and numbness of his tongue, his lawyer reported.

According to his defence lawyer, this occurred due to the stress Shirshikov experienced over the “unjust persecution by the administration of Penal Colony No. 2 (FKU IK-2).”

Shirshikov is currently being held in a single-cell-type facility (EPKT) at Penal Colony No. 13 in Sverdlovsk region. The lawyer says that medical staff are providing assistance.

In IK-2, Shirshikov was declared a persistent violator and was given two months in a cell-type facility and six months in the EPKT. Before this, he had been sent to the SHIZO (punishment cell) for various reasons, such as addressing an inspector in the familiar “ty” form (after the inspector had addressed him similarly) and for not making his bed quickly enough before the morning drill.

While in detention, Shirshikov had to have his left eye removed. Back in 2016, he suffered an eye injury, and in 2024, while in pre-trial detention, he accidentally injured it with a towel he was shaking out before drying. The situation worsened after a plumbing accident flooded the detention centre with urine. Due to the fumes, Shirshikov developed conjunctivitis. In April, his eye was removed, and at the start of June, he underwent surgery to replace his temporary eye prosthesis with a permanent one.

• In February 2024, the court sentenced Shirshikov to two years in a penal colony for “justifying terrorism” (Article 205.2, part 2 of the Criminal Code) over a post about the killing of propagandist Vladlen Tatarsky. On appeal, this sentence was increased to five years.
• Shirshikov admitted guilt but maintained that his post was “a personal emotional statement” and that he did not call for violence. “When I published that statement, the criminal investigation concerning Tatarsky was qualified as murder. But since the state took the position that it was a terrorist attack, I, unwittingly, justified a terrorist act,” he told the judge.