MSU postgraduate Azat Miftakhov details state sanctioned torture at Polar Owl penal colony
The Insider has published harrowing testimony from Azat Miftakhov, the MSU postgraduate and anarchist, detailing the systematic torture he claims to have endured upon his arrival at IK-18. Known as the ‘Polar Owl’, the high-security colony is situated in Kharp, within the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug.
According to Azat Miftakhov, he was taken to the colony’s operational unit on 21 April. There, he was confronted by two inmates — one identified as Mikhail and the other surnamed Bulanov — who ordered him to clean a toilet in the department. When Azat Miftakhov refused, he was brought before a colony official, Mikhail Sobolev. Over the course of a ninety-minute confrontation, Sobolev reportedly insisted that Azat Miftakhov ‘must do whatever the administration says’.
Following a further refusal, the officer summoned the same two inmates. Azat Miftakhov was bound with tape, he alleges that Sobolev sat on him while Bulanov struck his heels with a wooden mallet. ‘I began to suffocate and lose consciousness,’ Azat Miftakhov recounts. ‘When my cries grew quieter, Bulanov stopped. They waited until I came round, then started beating my heels again and compressing my back, making it hard to breathe.’
The prisoner alleges that he was subsequently threatened with rape and being submerged in sewage, before being returned to an office where the beatings continued. After this, Sobolev ‘clamped his nose and mouth shut until he began to suffocate’. Still bound, Azat Miftakhov was moved to a second floor where he was subjected to electric shocks. Loud music was played to mask his screams.
‘Then Bulanov switched on the current. I cried out. He said: “Ah, the bitch squealed.” After that, they increased the duration. The pain was so intense I screamed at the top of my lungs,’ Miftakhov says. He reports that the current was cut off only when he began to lose consciousness. That evening, he was returned to the quarantine unit. Despite the ordeal, he did not comply with the administration’s demands.
Azat Miftakhov identifies several other staff members — Aleksei Viktorovich, Pavel Kiselyov, and Yevgeny — who were allegedly present at intervals in the offices where the torture took place. He claims they spoke with the torturers and may have directed their actions.
Azat Miftakhov reached the Kharp colony no earlier than 19 April. Between 2019 and 2023, he served a sentence in connection with a smoke bomb thrown into the office of the ruling United Russia party. Upon completing his six-year term, he was immediately re-arrested on charges of ‘justifying terrorism’ (under Part 1 of Article 205.2 of the Criminal Code), an allegation reportedly based on conversations with other prisoners. In 2024, he was sentenced to a further four years’ imprisonment, with two and a half years to be served in prison custody. He served that portion of his sentence in Dimitrovgrad before being transferred to the colony in March.
