A woman heading up the Thornhill-based HALO Trust’s demining task force in Ukraine admits a tough job got even harder after Vladimir Putin launched his invasion of the country.
17.07.2022 - 19:39 / dailyrecord.co.uk
Vladimir Putin is deploying soldiers to the front line in Ukraine from notorious Russian prisons with a fierce reputation. Criminals from jails will bolster the ranks of the invading forces with the promise of almost £2,800 and their sentences scrapped if they comply.
Russian prisons are historically brutal places and while they are not quite as extreme as in the days of Soviet gulags filled to the brink by murderous dictator Joseph Stalin, conditions are reported to be difficult, particularly in specialist correction colonies.
IK-2 Male Correctional Colony east of Moscow was home to opposition leader Alexei Navalny. He has locked away after publicly opposing Putin, embarrassing the state with tales of bungled assassination attempts with Novichok, the lethal substance used in the Salisbury poisonings in 2017.
Investigations into the jail tell of regular beatings by guards, psychological torment designed to break inmates and even sexual assaults. Inmates are said to be woken up by a 6am alarm call of the Russian national anthem. Medical assistance is also not on offer unless inmates are extremely ill. Navalny himself went on hunger strike in protest against the lack of medical care given to him after reporting back pain.
Navalny himself likened the prison to a “friendly concentration camp” and while he had not seen beatings in the jail, said he would not be surprised by the reports of them. He is now at the similarly maligned IK-6 facility. Detained nationalist politician Dmitry Demushkin told a Reuters investigation he developed an abscess in his knee at IK-2, ignored by staff.
He claimed the medical bay was run by a woman who said: “Let him die in the barrack. He should have thought about his health when he committed his
A woman heading up the Thornhill-based HALO Trust’s demining task force in Ukraine admits a tough job got even harder after Vladimir Putin launched his invasion of the country.
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