Translated material
Crime attacks
The riots in the colonies, the FSIN is confident, were initiated by “seasoned criminals”
Three people were killed and, according to various sources, from six to 20 were injured as a result of the riots that broke out on Wednesday night in the Kirovograd juvenile correctional colony No. 2 (Sverdlovsk region). The Russian penitentiary system has not experienced such emergencies since the 90s of the last century. Lately, prisoners have only dared to protest by engaging in self-mutilation or through acts of demonstrative disobedience to the administration, but it has not come to the point of riots for a long time. Recently, the most serious incident for the Ministry of Justice was the hostage taking in September last year in one of the Moscow pre-trial detention centers , but even then it was a question of an unsuccessful escape attempt of only three prisoners.The incident in the Sverdlovsk region caused an immediate reaction from the authorities. Already yesterday, Director of the Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN) Yuri Kalinin and Director of the Department of Legal Regulation, Analysis and Control of the Activities of Subordinate Federal Services of the Ministry of Justice Yuri Yakovlev arrived in Yekaterinburg. Representatives of the department regarded the incident as an attempt by criminals to break the leadership of the service.
According to the official version, the riots in the colony began on Tuesday at 22.15. A group of convicts left the premises of their detachments and tried to break through the fence to freedom, attacking the tower. The guards opened fire and the escape was foiled. After this, the colony students set fire to the old headquarters building. After this, the colony administration resorted to the help of police officers from neighboring Nevyansk and Nizhny Tagil. Also, a combined detachment of employees of the Main Directorate of the Federal Penitentiary Service for the Sverdlovsk Region and the special purpose department were introduced into the colony. Already on Wednesday, by 1.30 a.m., the rebellious students were sent to local areas, and the situation in the institution was brought under control. At the same time, unofficial information appeared that at 3 a.m. the rebels made another attempt to break out of the colony and again came under fire. But official representatives of the FSIN do not confirm this information.
The governor of the Sverdlovsk region, Eduard Rossel, who usually does not intervene in such incidents, this time admitted that he had been monitoring what was happening in the colony all night and informed the head of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs, Rashid Nurgaliev, about the emergency.
The result of the riots was three deaths and a dozen injuries. One of the prisoners died on the spot, nine suffered “bodily injuries.” The FSIN press service reported that six colony employees had the same injuries. Another prisoner later died in the intensive care unit of a city hospital. One prison employee died there. Their names are not disclosed. The only thing the representatives of the colony did was to announce the list of students who ended up in medical institutions. These are young people from 15 to 18 years old.
In connection with the emergency, four criminal cases have been opened - murder, hostage-taking, riots and encroachment on the lives of law enforcement officers. The prosecutor of the Sverdlovsk region, Yuri Ponomarev, went urgently to Kirovograd yesterday, where he demanded that representatives of the city and district prosecutor's offices check the implementation of criminal legislation in all colonies of the Sverdlovsk region. He asked to pay special attention to the legality of keeping convicts in correctional colonies. The investigation does not rule out that the prisoners went on the riot because of irregularities in the work of the institution itself.
First Deputy Director of the Federal Penitentiary Service Eduard Petrukhin said yesterday that the unrest in Colony No. 2 and the September riot in the St. Petersburg “Crosses” (where a group of young prisoners refused to return to their cells, but there was no bloodshed) are interconnected and aimed at destabilizing the penal system of the Russian Federation. “Severe criminals who are at large, through convicted minors, want to destabilize the situation in the penal system. We believe that there is a direct connection between the recent riots in juvenile detention centers,” he said. — In the Kirovograd colony, convicts convicted under “heavy” charges who were being prepared for transfer to adult colonies were incited to riot. These guys don’t want to go to adult colonies, so it’s easier to persuade them to organize unrest.” Mr. Petrukhin did not rule out the possibility that a similar situation could repeat itself in any other Russian colony.