Andrei Padalka, charged with treason, reports self-harm after alleged abuse in Irkutsk remand prison

Andrei Padalka, a 53-year-old man charged with treason, has written an open letter describing alleged abuse at Irkutsk Remand Prison No. 1 (SIZO-1). The letter has been published by the Free Political Prisoners project.

In the letter, Andrei Padalka states that on 13 May he and several other detainees were taken to the office of two operational officers identified as Oleg Eduardovich and Leonidovich, where they were made to stand facing the wall and forced to repeat the administration’s greeting aloud for an hour.

‘I was unwell. I had seen a doctor the day before… For this reason I was shouting the greeting less loudly than the others. I was struck five times on the back of the head with a blunt object. The blows were delivered by a member of a prison work brigade whose name I do not know, who had previously been held in this remand prison five years earlier. He also threatened that I would be taken to a cell with a convicted rapist known as “Kuper”, who would rape me. I complied with their demands and shouted the greetings increasingly loudly,’ he writes.

He further states that, upon returning to his cell, he cut his lower abdomen approximately five times with a razor blade.

Andrei Padalka was detained on 16 October 2024. Prior to his arrest, he had worked as a driver in Ust-Kut, Irkutsk region, and had previously run a farm in the Altai Krai. He was initially charged under Article 275.1 of the Russian Criminal Code (confidential cooperation with a foreign state or organisation) before the charge was upgraded to the more serious offence of treason under Article 275.

For six months following his detention, his family had no information about his whereabouts. According to the If There Were No War project, he was not formally remanded in custody until 16 April 2025. A fellow detainee from Irkutsk, Vadim Nekrashchuk, who is also charged with treason, told a court that he had been held incommunicado for several months in an FSB safe house. He requested that Andrei Padalka be called as a witness, stating that he had been held under similar conditions; the court refused the request.