The Insider identifies Russian prison officials Azat Miftakhov accused of torture at Polar Owl colony beyond the Arctic Circle

Azat Miftakhov, a political prisoner and mathematician, recently reported that he was tortured on April 21, shortly after being transferred to Penal Colony No. 18 (IK-18), known by its moniker “Polar Owl,” in the urban locality of Kharp in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District. The Insider obtained Miftakhov’s detailed account of how prison staff and two inmates acting on their orders tortured him for several hours. According to Miftakhov, the torture was triggered by his refusal to obey the administration’s demands, including cleaning a toilet in the operations department, which prisoners call “Lubyanka.”

In Miftakhov’s account, IK-18 employee Mikhail Sobolev appears as one of the main perpetrators of the torture. Miftakhov said Sobolev summoned two inmates who knocked him to the floor, tied him up with tape, and began beating him. Miftakhov says Sobolev personally sat on his back, causing him to suffocate and lose consciousness, hit him on the head, pinched his nose and mouth shut, and took part in threats to rape him and dunk him into a sewer manhole.

According to Miftakhov, Pavel Kiselev was on the second floor of the operations department, where the political prisoner was taken after the first round of torture. There, wires were attached to the prisoner’s toes, and he was tortured with electric shocks while loud music was played to drown out his screams. Miftakhov named Kiselev among the officers present in the room during the torture.