Inside Vladimir Putin's 'torture prison' where inmates are made to suffer

21 February 2024 , 10:32

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Inmates being held in Lefortovo Prison (Image: Getty Images)

Russia's most notorious jail – where incarceration is like being sent straight to hell – has ben described as "a torture pit at the end of the world".

Vladimir Putin's Lefortovo prison, where inmates are allowed only one shower a week and talking is forbidden, has been in the spotlight this month following the mysterious death of his biggest critic, Alexei Navalny.

Anti-corruption campaigner Navalny met his end in one of Putin's prisons where prisoners are made to suffer. The Arctic Wolf Prison, where he died, is situated 1,200 miles northeast of Moscow, but the country's most secure jail is on the outskirts of the capital.

Lefortovo, where Putin's forces hold terrorist suspects, alleged spies and high-profile ex-officials, has a long and violent history. First opened in 1881, it became a place of terror during Joseph Stalin's Great Purge in the 1930s. Stalin, the leader of the Soviet Union, ordered mass executions at the vast facility, and it's said that a giant meat grinder was used to dispose of the bodies of tortured inmates, with the remains thrown into sewers.

But the horrific treatment of prisoners didn't stop there. Even today, foreigners accused of spying spend their first 10 days in a tiny, freezing cell, sleeping on iron-bar beds with paper-thin mattresses. Zoya Svetova from the Public Monitoring Commission of Moscow once told the Daily Beast: "This period is some sort of humiliating time to 'cook' them. People feel naked, left without any private belongings. No other prison in Moscow has more hostile treatment during the quarantine period than Lefortovo. We once met a Turkish national in that part of the prison for foreign inmates. He managed to get a fur hat and wore it constantly. He was freezing."

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Inmates can be sent letters but they are read by prison officials beforehand (No credit)

Elena Masyuk, a reporter for independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta, said there is no hot water in cells and prisoners are restricted to one cold shower a week. News reports also suggest that phone calls are banned and letters received are first read by officials.

Vil Mirzayanov, a former inmate who was charged with treason in 1992, spoke to the Moscow Times about his awful time in jail and how there was nothing separating the toilet from the rest of the cell. He described how bunking inmates spaced just yards apart would have to turn their backs to give each other privacy when using the bathroom.

Prisoners in a grim jail were so overwhelmed by the awful smell that they burned toilet paper to try and cover it up. One person said it was like an attack on the mind, saying: "It is so difficult to get used to it. I never did. It is absolutely terrible." The prison, with its high walls topped with barbed wire, lets prisoners walk outside every day. But loud music plays all the time so no one can talk properly.

People strolling outside Lefortovo prison in January 2019 (AFP via Getty Images)

A US Marine who was locked up there for four days told The Wall Street Journal how lonely it felt. He said: "Why don't I hear anyone? Why don't I see anyone? This place was so locked down. I don't even know if I had yelled out that other prisoners could have heard me. Whenever you move in the prison you'd see no one at all."

Another man, Nicholas Daniloff, wrote about how he was tricked and scared while he was there. He said in US News and World Report: "The colonel never raised his voice or pounded the table. He played with my emotions, posing alternatively as a good cop and a bad cop. He controlled everything I got my food, when I could move, everything. When I got out, he had made me feel guilty even though I wasn't."

It opened in 1881 and is said to be the most secure jail in Russia (AFP via Getty Images)

Alexander Litvinenko, a Russian spy who moved to Britain and was later poisoned, also spent time in the same prison. Marina, his wife, spoke to The Wall Street Journal and said that Lefortovo is a place where people are tortured because they are kept all alone. She said they want her husband to be "broken". A reporter from the newspaper, Evan Gershovich, is also locked up there now. He was arrested in 2023 when he was reporting about the Wagner group.

Rom Preston-Ellis