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Alexander Plotnikov, who was sentenced to six years in a general-regime colony over a comment under a video about shooting at a police car in Makhachkala, has spoken out about poor conditions in Remand Centre No. 3 in Chelyabinsk, a major city in the Urals. A letter from the detainee to his wife was published by his support group.

Plotnikov described outdated renovations, poor lighting and high humidity: “The walls are covered in peeling paint, old stains, mould and salt. You can’t breathe with those walls. Add to that 100% humidity,” he wrote. The detainee also talked about a large number of insects and rats: “And there are way more of us here: mosquitoes, flies, woodlice, earwigs, cockroaches and all sorts of spiders, tiny bathroom gnats (they’re called ‘cone bugs’ here—just like 20 years ago). I even saw a water strider. There are bigger animals too. I watch them through the open hatch in the door, how they tear open rubbish bags at night, fight and squeak. As you’ve probably guessed, it’s a rat. There are swarms of them here. And yesterday I saw a well-fed cat. It’s basically its own zoo here. That’s underground for you.”

In addition, Plotnikov was reprimanded for not sleeping at night: “I have studied Federal Law 103 thoroughly. No, such an offence doesn’t exist; being awake at night. But they still gave me a reprimand.”

The military court in Yekaterinburg—a large city in the Urals—sentenced Plotnikov on 10 October 2024 to six years in a penal colony under the article on “justifying terrorism” (part 2, Article 205.2 of the Russian Criminal Code). The basis was a comment he wrote: “Finally! At least someone is taking on the bandits in uniform.” An aggravating circumstance, the court noted, was that the comment was made during the mobilisation period (para. “l,” part 1, Article 63 of the Criminal Code). After his arrest, the man was tortured with a stun gun for several hours.

  • Plotnikova—his wife—writes that in the 1990s her husband was into punk rock and also associated himself with the far-right skinhead subculture. In 2005, he was convicted and sentenced to seven years and two months in prison for causing grievous bodily harm resulting, through negligence, in death (part 4, Article 111 of the Criminal Code). According to Ural-Press-Inform, Plotnikov was also found guilty at the time of intentionally inflicting minor bodily harm (part 1, Article 115) and group robbery (para. “a,” part 2, Article 161). He served five and a half years and was then released on parole. Subsequently, as his wife writes, Plotnikov did not commit violent crimes. After his release, he became a professional in the arts—painting, restoration and tattooing.
  • Alexander Plotnikov attended various public actions: the “Russian March” in 2013; an anti-corruption rally in 2017 organised by Alexei Navalny; a memorial rally for Boris Nemtsov; and a 2020 demonstration supporting protesters in Khabarovsk in Russia’s Far East. He also joined protests against Navalny’s arrest in 2021 and that year took part in a nationalist and anarchist event in memory of those killed in defence of workers’ rights or unjustly convicted. He faced administrative charges over graffiti supporting prisoners of conscience, a song saved on VKontakte (Article 20.29 of the Code of Administrative Offences), a photo in his tattoo portfolio that resembled Nazi symbols (part 1, Article 20.3), and participation in an unsanctioned rally (part 5, Article 20.2).
  • On the evening of 23 June 2024 in Dagestan, there were attacks on police posts, Orthodox churches and synagogues in the cities of Derbent and Makhachkala (both in the North Caucasus). Twenty people were killed in the attacks, including 15 security officers and 4 civilians, among them the priest of the church in Derbent. Six of the attackers, believed to be local residents, were killed—three were sons of the head of Sergokala district, Magomed Omarov, who was detained for questioning. The Investigative Committee opened a terrorism case.