Warning. This article contains descriptions of torture. If this is unacceptable to you or could cause you harm, please do not read it.

Anarchist and mathematician Azat Miftakhov says he was tortured after being transferred to Prison Colony No. 18 “Polyarnaya Sova” in the settlement of Kharp in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District, the independent Russian investigative outlet The Insider reported, having received the political prisoner’s account “through its own channels.”

According to Miftakhov, on April 21 (the day after his arrival in Kharp), he was taken to the colony’s administration building, where the operational department is located. There he was met by two convicted inmates — one with the surname Bulanov, the other named Mikhail. They demanded that Miftakhov clean a toilet, but the political prisoner refused. He was then taken into the office of colony officer Mikhail Sobolev, who spent an hour and a half telling the prisoner that he must do everything the administration ordered, including cleaning the toilet in the operational department.

“Then, when I refused again, he either pressed a button or made a call, after which those two inmates came running into the office. They knocked me to the floor. Bulanov sat on my torso. […] Mikhail sat on my legs and began wrapping them in tape. […] Mikhail punched me in the groin several times to make me stop resisting,” Miftakhov said. The inmates then taped his hands together — Sobolev sat on his stomach while Bulanov began striking his heels with a wooden mallet.

I started screaming from the pain […]. I was in pain and at the same time could barely breathe. I began to suffocate and lose consciousness. When my screams started to fade, Bulanov stopped hitting my heels. They waited for me to come to, and then started hitting my heels again and also pressing down on my back, making it hard to breathe.

Miftakhov was then threatened with rape. His trousers and underwear were removed, and Mikhail “began applying cream to his anal opening with his fingers,” the prisoner said. He was then carried into the corridor and his face was pushed toward a sewage hatch filled with waste.

Miftakhov was then brought back into the office, where he was again threatened with rape, slapped in the face, and had his body and head stepped on. According to the prisoner, Sobolev struck him approximately one hundred times on the head with an open palm, then pinched his nose and mouth shut and held them closed until he began to suffocate.

The torture continued on the second floor of the department, where operatives Pavel Kiselev and Yevgeny were present. There the prisoner was placed face down and wires were attached to his toes.

Then Bulanov sent an electric current through them. I cried out. He said: “Ah, the bitch squealed.” After that, the current was applied for even longer. The pain was so terrible that I began screaming at the top of my lungs. […] As soon as I started screaming, Mikhail pressed a towel against my mouth. It was very painful and terrifying. When I began to lose consciousness, the current was switched off. Half a minute later the current was applied again, and this continued for some time.

The operatives demanded that Miftakhov comply with all orders from the administration, but the prisoner refused. The current was then switched on again. After some time, operative Yevgeny ordered the wires removed from Miftakhov and the tape cut off, and he was allowed to get dressed. By the end of the day, the political prisoner was taken back to the quarantine facility.

Moscow State University mathematics PhD student Azat Miftakhov was detained in February 2019 on charges of manufacturing explosives. He reported being tortured at a police station in the Moscow region. He was subsequently charged with participating in an attack on a United Russia party office. According to investigators, in January 2018 anarchists smashed a window at the party’s office on Onezhskaya Street in Moscow and threw a smoke grenade inside. No one was injured in the incident. Miftakhov was accused of having supplied the anarchists with the grenade and of having been nearby during the action to monitor the situation. He denied this. In January 2021, the Golovinsky District Court of Moscow sentenced Miftakhov to six years in a penal colony; the other defendants in the case received suspended sentences.

On September 4, 2025, Miftakhov was detained as he was leaving the penal colony in Omutninsk, Kirov Oblast, where he had been serving his sentence. The following day, a court remanded him in custody. The mathematician was charged with “justifying terrorism” (Part 1 of Article 205.2 of the Russian Criminal Code). According to investigators, Miftakhov, in a conversation with three cellmates at the Kirov colony, “approved” the act of Mikhail Zhlobitsky, who carried out the bombing at the Arkhangelsk FSB directorate. Miftakhov denies that the conversation ever took place. The court sentenced him to four years in prison.