DISINFO: Heating being switched off in Russian prisons a joke invented by Ukrainian media
SUMMARY
THE JOKE OF THE DAY. Putin turns off the heat in prisons so that prisoners go to fight in Ukraine - Ukrainian media.
RESPONSE
The ridiculing technique Hahaganda is used here to dismiss information published by a Russian human rights organisation pointing to the well-known harsh conditions in the Russian penitary system.
The information did not originate from Ukrainian media but was provided by the head of a Russian NGO defending the rights of prisoners to a Russian media outlet. Olga Romanova, the founder of the 'Russia Behind Bars' project, has stated that there is an increasing recruitment of female prisoners in Russian prisons. According to her data, about 1,000 Russian women are currently fighting in Ukraine. Vladimir Putin and his entourage decided to use severe frosts as a means to stimulate inmates to 'volunteer' and replenish troop losses in the Russian army in Ukraine. For this purpose, the heating in prisons is turned off, and prison conditions become unbearable. The German publication Bild in Russian wrote about this.
The Federal Penitentiary Service initially denied the information on 14 January 2023: “The Department of the Penal Correctional Inspectorate is operating as usual in compliance with the tempo of the temperature norms. No failures or accidents related to heating have been found anywhere and are not present at the moment”.
No other organisation confirmed this issue that day. However, Alexey Melnikov, member of Council under the President of the Russian Federation for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights, recognised that some detention centres for women had issues with heating and could not deliver more than +12°C, but that was not done on purpose. No independent investigation, however, was carried out to establish the context of those heating system failure.
More generally, the issue of torture and inhumane treatment in various forms against inmates is documented and has a systemic scale. Many accounts including photos and video taken by the persecutors were published after an ex-inmate working in IT leaked many files. Eventually the Kremlin recognised that those crimes were obvious in 2021.
It is estimated that more than 100,000 prisoners were sent to the front in Ukraine (up to 150,000 according to other estimations) with heavy losses.
Read also related stories such as: Moscow scrupulously observes Geneva Conventions on treatment of POWs, or Alleged torture videos in Russian prisons were not given by a whistle-blower but sold for US dollars or Russia’s complaint to ECHR: Kyiv violates rights, kills civilians in Donbas.