Translated material
"They thought they would win"
The leadership of the FSIN and human rights activists have different interpretations of the events in the colony near St. Petersburg
The regional department of the Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN) in St. Petersburg yesterday morning carried out “routine preventive regime measures” in colony No. 5 in the village of Metallostroy. They expressed themselves in the introduction of about 500 special forces soldiers into the colony, who conducted an inspection to determine whether the prisoners were in possession of prohibited items. As the FSIN stated, the “prevention” did not involve the use of violence or resistance and was needed to “relieve tension.” At the same time, it was especially noted that there was in fact no riot or unrest in colony No. 5, as previously reported. At the same time, the leadership of the FSIN admitted that there were still attempts to organize unrest in the colony, and they were made by criminal authorities who are at large.Rumors of a riot in colony No. 5, located in the suburbs of St. Petersburg in the village of Metallostroy, where about 2 thousand convicts are kept, appeared on Thursday evening from human rights activists and relatives of prisoners. The fire department received a signal about a fire from there, but the administration refused to allow the crews that arrived to enter the territory, saying that they would handle it on their own. According to the initial version, the prisoners, among whom there was a rumor about the beating of their cellmates in the punishment cell, allegedly set fire to a residential barracks and a security tower, and then tried to attack administration employees and take hostages. It was reported that several people were injured in the clashes. Special forces forces were deployed to the colony. Several hundred employees of the Central Internal Affairs Directorate and the Federal Penitentiary Service, including the Typhoon special forces, SOBR, OMON, and vehicles with water cannons, gathered near IK-5. Representatives of the Federal Penitentiary Service, however, yesterday denied information about the riot in the colony. The first deputy director of the department, Eduard Petrukhin, said that garbage was burning in the colony, and that prisoners of about 200 people on Thursday evening, although they gathered near the building of the punishment cell, no one beat or captured anyone. According to Mr. Pervukhin, “explanatory” work was carried out with those gathered, after which they quietly dispersed.
According to the Federal Penitentiary Service, it turned out that nothing outstanding happened at all in the colony, but representatives of the department admitted that after this they carried out “routine preventive measures.” About 100 prisoners from IK-5 were transferred to other correctional institutions. “This was done in order to relieve tension in the colony,” the FSIN noted. In addition, yesterday morning about 500 special forces soldiers were brought into the colony. As Alexander Sidorov, a representative of the Federal Penitentiary Service, stated, “no forceful actions were carried out, prohibited items were confiscated from prisoners.” As a result, about 50 mobile phones, a lot of homemade knives and sharpening points, as well as about 20 liters of alcohol-containing liquid and drugs were found. After this, as reported by the Federal Penitentiary Service, the situation in the colony was completely normalized and stabilized.
Only yesterday evening the situation was partially clarified by the Deputy Director of the Federal Penitentiary Service Vladimir Semenyuk. “The media spread information that there were unrest in the colony, although this had not happened yet,” he told news agencies. -- The convicts also behaved aggressively while eating, throwing cups. They thought they would win. The system is being tested for strength. But in vain. This is a government structure. We won't let anyone ruin it. We know who is doing this , and the investigative authorities are already looking into them.”
Who exactly we are talking about was already clarified by the Central Internal Affairs Directorate of St. Petersburg, whose employees detained a certain previously repeatedly convicted criminal authority. According to detectives, it was he who allegedly tried to cause unrest in IK-5, communicating with prisoners using the same mobile phones that were confiscated from them.
Yesterday it became known that one of the prisoners in this colony committed suicide. An investigation into the incident was launched, but the Federal Penitentiary Service noted that the deceased was serving a sentence for rape and was not one of the authorities and leaders. So far, FSIN employees believe that suicide is based on personal motives.
The events in the colony near St. Petersburg are far from the first such incident in recent times . On October 17, during unrest in a juvenile colony in the Sverdlovsk region, two prisoners and an administration employee were killed, and 20 more people were taken to hospitals. And a month earlier, in the St. Petersburg detention center “Kresty,” a group of young people refused to obey the administration.
The FSIN, however, believes that these emergencies have different reasons. In connection with the riot in the colony near Yekaterinburg, the department admitted mistakes in the actions of the administration (six of its representatives were suspended from work). The incident in the Leningrad region in the FSIN, on the contrary, was associated with the restoration of order there by the new head of the regional FSIN.