November 10, 2025
On November 8, the administration of Penal Colony No. 4 (IK-4) in Torzhok (Tver Region) sent CounterPunch writer Boris Kagarlitsky, sociologist, opponent of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and editor-in-chief of the internet platform Rabkor (“Worker Correspondent”) to solitary confinement for at least three days.
According to Rabkor, before sending him to solitary confinement, the colony administration had promised to hospitalise Kagarlitsky at the request of his lawyer Yulia Kuznetsova.
She has reported that she had appealed to the head of IK-4 on October 20, with the request to hospitalize Kagarlitsky. According to Kuznetsova, his health had deteriorated and his blood pressure had begun to rise.
The pretext for Kagarlitsky’s punishment is unknown, and at the time of writing it is not clear if and when his period of solitary confinment will end.
However, even if Boris Kagarlitsky is released immediately, the decision to put the 67-year-old in a solitary confinement punishment cell should alarm anyone concerned for his medical condition and his human rights.
According to the October 2024 report by UN Special Rapporteur Mariana Katzarova (Situation of human rights in the Russian Federation): “Psychological torture in prisons, including by subjecting detainees to prolonged solitary confinement in a punishment isolation cell (SHIZO), or banishment to a psychiatric ward, can lead to death.”
Opposition leader Alexey Navalnyi, murdered by the Putin regime, described the experience of a SHIZO in his book Patriot:
“This is how it works. A concrete kennel measuring 2.5 × 3 meters. Most of the time, it’s unbearable there because it’s cold and damp. There’s water on the floor. I have the beach version — it’s very hot and there’s almost no air. The window is tiny, and because of the thickness of the walls, no air gets in — not even a spider web moves. There’s no ventilation.
“At night, you lie there and feel like a fish on the shore. The iron bunk is attached to the wall, like on a train. Only the lever that lowers it is on the outside. At 5 a.m., they take away your mattress and pillow (this is called “soft inventory”) and raise the bunk. At 9 p.m., the bunk is lowered again and the mattress is returned. An iron table, an iron bench, a sink, a hole in the floor. Two cameras under the ceiling.”
If Boris Kagarlitsky is maintained in solitary confinement one day longer than the three-day minimum, our Campaign shall launch the most powerful protests we can manage to end his torture.
Kagarlitsky, along with over 2000 other political prisoners, should never have been deprived of liberty in the first place.
His placement in solitary confinement shows how anxious the Putin regime is to silence his powerful voice for democratic rights and social justice.
NOTE: The 67-year-old sociologist and opponent of the Russian invasion of Ukraine is serving a five-year sentence for “justifying terrorism.” The justification for the criminal prosecution was his comments about the explosion on the Crimean Bridge (see here for full detail).
In November 2024, Kagarlitsky stated that he refused to participate in possible prisoner exchanges between Russia and the West. He called the expulsion of citizens who are undesirable to the authorities “a form of political repression.”
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