Russia plans to build seven "super-prisons", including in occupied Kherson Oblast

The Russian authorities plan to build seven Federal Penitentiary Service facilities by 2035, combining pre-trial detention centres and correctional colonies of various security levels, including in the temporarily occupied territory of the Kherson Oblast.

Source: The Moscow Times, an independent Amsterdam-based news outlet, citing a revised version of the Development of the Penal System federal programme

Details: According to the document, the facilities will have a combined capacity of over 20,000 individuals, providing 5,380 places in pre-trial detention centres and 15,120 in correctional colonies.

Russia plans to build these multi-regime prisons in the Kaluga, Astrakhan and Tyumen regions, the Republic of Buryatia, Zabaykalsky Krai and the occupied part of Ukraine's Kherson Oblast.

The first facility is slated to open in Tatarstan by 2030.

According to calculations by the Russian Ministry of Justice, operating multi-regime facilities "will reduce the cost of detaining prisoners and suspects by 25-30%."

The new "super-prisons" are planned to incorporate cutting-edge organisational and engineering solutions, including IT technologies, while ensuring comfortable working conditions for staff, according to earlier statements by Russian Justice Minister Konstantin Chuychenko.

Arkady Gostev, Head of the Federal Penitentiary Service, noted, for his part, that no new correctional colonies have been built in Russia since 1984.

For reference: A country of prisons and a prison country. How Russia put Ukrainians on a conveyor belt of torture – and who is to blame

Background:

• The Russian authorities actively recruit prisoners, including those convicted of violent crimes, to send fresh forces to the front lines in Ukraine.
• Concurrently, the Putin regime holds Ukrainian prisoners of war in inhumane conditions in violation of international humanitarian law, subjecting them to torture and withholding medical care.

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