The weapon used by the gunman was officially registered, and he himself held the relevant permits. According to journalists’ reports, the man turned out to be a lieutenant-colonel in the Russian Armed Forces – a native of Moscow with Ukrainian citizenship – who, according to some sources, had made donations in support of the so-called ‘special military operation’. According to preliminary information, he had already attacked people in the same shop three years earlier. Neighbours say he moved into the building at the start of the full-scale invasion.

These facts form a chilling picture, but our task is not to inflame emotions – it is to try to answer, calmly and honestly, the questions that this tragedy inevitably poses to society, the law enforcement system and the rule of law.

WEAPONS, LICENCES AND THE ILLUSION OF SAFETY

The first and most obvious conclusion that springs to mind is that this crime was committed using a legally registered weapon. This is not a mere detail but a fundamentally important circumstance that undermines one of the central arguments of those lobbying for the free circulation of firearms: ‘Legal Weapons = Safety’.

The debate over the liberalisation of the firearms market in Ukraine has raged for years, but it intensified particularly in the context of the full-scale war, when a section of society and a number of lawmakers began insisting on enshrining the right to bear arms in the constitution, citing the need for self-defence and patriotic duty. The tragedy in Korsun polarised society at the time: many people sympathised with the man who had used a weapon against law enforcement officers – which in itself is symptomatic and alarming.

The current case is fundamentally different. Here there is no ‘people’s avenger’ or ‘Korsun Robin Hood’, nor is there any hint of social conflict with the system. There is a retired lieutenant-colonel who shoots peaceful supermarket shoppers with a legally registered pistol. It is precisely this circumstance that should settle the debate: not ‘who’ commits the crime or what their ideology is, but the fact that Ukraine’s system for issuing firearms licences is structurally incapable of filtering out those who harbour hidden destructive intentions. Screening during the registration of firearms has proved futile. Previous attacks on people in the same shop did not lead to the licence being revoked. The system failed.

Here, however, we must refrain from oversimplification. The people’s right to resist tyranny remains a fundamental principle of constitutional theory and international legal tradition. The question is not whether a citizen has the right to defend themselves, but whether the state is capable of responsibly managing the circulation of weapons in conditions of hybrid warfare, social trauma and the psychological instability of the population. The answer provided by this tragedy is – not yet.

NEGOTIATIONS, DE-ESCALATION AND COMMUNICATION FAILURE

For around 40 minutes, negotiators attempted to establish contact with the attacker, but he did not respond. “He did not make contact. I did not hear him,” noted the head of the negotiation unit at the Kyiv National Police.

This is a key detail that requires separate analysis. Forty minutes is both a long time and a short time. For negotiators, this is a relatively brief period in tactical terms. But the very fact of a complete lack of any response from the attacker indicates not only his pathological determination, but also a fundamental problem: were these forty minutes used with genuinely professional techniques for engaging a person in crisis? Does our police force even have the necessary level of training for negotiators capable of working with people who have crossed a psychological threshold?

Today, a dangerous mindset prevails among some Ukrainian police officers: ‘Shoot First – Sort It Out Later’. This mindset has gained further momentum in a wartime environment, where violence is normalised and the right to use force is interpreted far more broadly than provided for by law and human rights standards. The Kyiv tragedy, like many before it, risks becoming not a catalyst for reform but a confirmation of this flawed logic. Meanwhile, the ECtHR consistently emphasises that when assessing the lawfulness of the use of lethal force, account must be taken not only of the actions of the perpetrators but also of all the surrounding circumstances – in particular, planning and control (Mikhalkova and Others v. Ukraine, para. 36; McCann and Others v. the UK [GC], para. 150). The legislative and administrative framework must clearly define the limited circumstances in which law enforcement officers may use firearms, and police officers must not be left in a state of uncertainty regarding these limits (Soare and Others v. Romania, para. 129).

The true measure of police effectiveness is the ability to resolve critical situations without resorting to lethal force. It is in this direction that modern policing is developing in democratic countries, where officers acquire skills honed over years in de-escalation, psychological influence and – only in extreme cases – the use of weapons. The ECtHR in Soare and Others v. Romania explicitly stated that the absence of clear rules and proper training explains the inadequate and autonomous actions of police officers in critical situations (para. 135). And in Celniku v. Greece, the Court held that Article 2 of the ECHR covers not only the direct actions of police officers but also staff training: if the level of training does not correspond to the complexity of the tasks at hand, the state bears responsibility.

NEUTRALISATION OF THE ATTACKER: ARTICLE 2 OF THE ECHR AND THE RIGHT TO LIFE

Minister of Internal Affairs Ihor Klymenko stated that KORD special forces carried out a raid and neutralised the attacker. During the assault, the perpetrator resisted law enforcement officers and opened fire on them.

In the acute phase of a crisis, when a person is actively shooting at police officers, the use of lethal force is formally justified even under the strict standards of Article 2 of the Convention.

The ECtHR, in cases such as McCann and Others v. United Kingdom, Nachova v. Bulgaria and Finogenov v. Russia, has consistently developed the criterion of ‘absolute necessity’: the state is obliged to prove that the person’s death was the result of force that did not exceed what was absolutely necessary in the specific circumstances. At the same time, as explained in McCann and Others v. the UK [GC] (para. 200), the use of force is justified only where the agents genuinely believed that opening fire was necessary and had subjectively sufficient grounds for doing so — rather than merely following orders.

The standard of ‘absolute necessity’ is stricter than the criterion of ‘necessary in a democratic society’ under Articles 8 and 11 of the ECHR: force must be strictly proportionate (Jaloud v. the Netherlands [GC], para. 199; Kelly and Others v. the UK, para. 93). In a situation involving the rescue of a hostage from an armed criminal offering active resistance, these conditions may be met — but this still requires verification.

But this is precisely where the issue begins that most commentators prefer to sidestep. The state is obliged to conduct an effective independent investigation into whether there really was no other tactical option. Were all possibilities for a non-violent resolution of the situation exhausted? Was the timing of the assault correctly chosen? Is every shot fired by KORD officers documented and justified? The ECtHR in Al-Skeini and Others v. the UK [GC] (para. 163) and Armani Da Silva v. the UK [GC] (para. 233) clearly stated: the investigation must cover not only the immediate actions of those carrying out the operation but also the planning and control of the operation as a whole; it must be capable of establishing whether the use of force was justified. Any shortcoming that undermines this capability constitutes a violation of the procedural aspect of Article 2 of the ECHR. A telling example is the case of Finogenov and Others v. Russia (Operation ‘Nord-Ost’), where the Court found a violation precisely because of the incompleteness and bias of the investigation.

In the context of Ukraine during a full-scale invasion, a public demand for an investigation into the circumstances of the death of a man who had just killed six civilians sounds critically unpopular. But this is precisely the essence of the rule of law: Article 2 of the ECHR protects the right to life not only of the criminal’s victims, but also of the criminal himself. Without this principle, the entire human rights framework becomes a situational compromise of the majority, rather than a system of universal guarantees. Article 2 of the ECHR imposes a positive obligation on the state not only to refrain from the intentional deprivation of life, but also to take preventive measures to protect persons within its jurisdiction (Yuriy Illarionovich Shchokin v. Ukraine, para. 35). A general legal prohibition on arbitrary deprivation of life becomes ineffective without an effective review procedure: this is precisely how the Court formulated it in Giuliani and Gaggio v. Italy [GC] (para. 249) and Al-Skeini and Others v. the UK [GC] (para. 163). Andronicou and Constantinou v. Cyprus demonstrates that even a hostage rescue operation resulting in the death of a perpetrator may be deemed lawful – but only provided that planning was carried out with a view to minimising risk, negotiations were conducted rationally, and the operatives had clear instructions to use only proportionate force (para. 194).

Furthermore, there is a purely practical argument: a lieutenant-colonel in the Russian Armed Forces who had lived in Ukraine, made donations to the ‘SVO’ and ultimately carried out a mass shooting – this was a source of information of exceptional value to counter-intelligence. His motives, connections, possible handlers and funding channels could all have been established during interrogations. His elimination has permanently shut down that channel.

THE DANGER OF ‘SECURITY’ DISCOURSE AND HUMAN RIGHTS

This tragedy will inevitably give rise to legislative initiatives. Some will be aimed at tightening controls on the circulation of weapons — and this is justified and necessary. But others — and this is where alarm bells should ring — will use this incident to justify expanding the police apparatus, intensifying preventive surveillance and legalising ‘proactive’ operational measures.

This mechanism is well known in human rights practice: a terrorist attack or large-scale crime becomes a ‘window of opportunity’ for the state to expand its powers in areas where citizens would not normally permit such intrusion. Laws passed ‘in the heat of the moment’ are, as a rule, not repealed even after the shock has passed.

The right to private and family life, guaranteed by Article 8 of the ECHR, the right to the protection of personal data, the right not to be subject to preventive police surveillance without sufficient grounds – all these guarantees are under threat whenever society experiences a sudden surge of fear. The standard of ‘necessary in a democratic society’ under Article 8 of the ECHR is less stringent than the criterion of ‘absolutely necessary’ under Article 2, but even this does not permit the state to introduce widespread preventive surveillance without individual grounds and judicial oversight. The task of the human rights community, the legal profession and the academic community is to ensure that a single tragedy does not become a justification for systemic restrictions on rights that will affect millions of people who have no connection whatsoever to the crime.

POLICE TRAINING

A dangerous trend that has long been brewing within the Ukrainian police has now gained new momentum: a readiness to use weapons before establishing the facts. The tragedy of 18 April risks becoming not a warning but a justification for this logic – and it is currently extremely difficult to assess the true scale of such a shift.

That is precisely why this case must serve as a compelling argument in favour of a systematic review of police training – but not in the direction of improving marksmanship or physical skills. We are talking about something fundamentally different: training officers in the art of communication, the ability to defuse tension in real time and the professional application of de-escalation techniques.

The true measure of the effectiveness of a modern police force is the ability to resolve critical situations without violence. The shift from a punitive model to one of dialogue and professional restraint is not romanticism but a practical necessity. This is where the future of Ukraine’s law enforcement system lies.

CONCLUSIONS

This tragedy presents a multi-layered challenge. For society, it is a call for restraint amidst emotional pressure and the temptation of simplistic answers. For legislators, it is a challenge to draft regulations that genuinely enhance safety without becoming instruments of punitive bureaucracy. For the police, it is a mirror in which they must see not their own heroism but their systemic shortcomings in training, de-escalation and tactical flexibility. For human rights defenders, it is a reminder that the protection of human rights cannot be conditional: either it applies to everyone, or it does not exist as a principle.

Six families are mourning their loved ones. This is an undeniable reality, and it takes precedence. But the appropriate response to these deaths is not a new wave of police aggression or a flurry of emotional legislation – it is a systematic, dispassionate and honest analysis of where the system failed, and how to fix it without losing our humanity.

That said, the bill’s authors proved flexible: if a citizen genuinely wants to hear a foreign voice on the line, they can personally notify their operator of this unorthodox wish. In other words, silence from the outside world becomes the default, and the desire to hear it becomes an administrative act of personal courage. What was perfectly ordinary just yesterday—receiving a call from relatives abroad — will tomorrow become a privilege reserved for those who took the trouble to submit a request.

It should also be noted that the rule will not apply to numbers from the Union State — meaning Belarus remains accessible. The rest of the world does not. The geography of trust, as we can see, is clearly defined.

Now for the most interesting part.

The official justification for the law is the fight against telephone scammers who call from abroad and swindle money from the elderly. The problem is certainly real and acute. But this raises a delicate question: what will happen to the domestic fraud sector, which, according to Russian law enforcement officials themselves, is thriving just as vigorously and, unlike its foreign competitors, calls exclusively from numbers with the +7 code?

The logic of the law, if you think about it, runs something like this: we cannot allow a grandmother from Ryazan to fall victim to some scoundrel from Kyiv or Warsaw — that would be an affront to national dignity. But if that same pensioner hands over her savings to a “bank security officer” from Nizhny Novgorod — that is purely an internal matter, a private arrangement between citizens of the same state.

The state, in this way, carefully protects domestic producers from unfair foreign competition. Protectionism in its purest form — only instead of tariffs, a legislative blockade against outside challengers.

It is also worth considering the aesthetics of this decision.

The Iron Curtain of the Soviet era closed the borders to people — it prevented them from leaving. The new, digital and telephonic curtain operates more subtly: it simply prevents anyone from calling in. Bodies may remain wherever they are, but the information space is neatly contracted to the confines of the Union State, plus whatever one declares to one’s operator.

It is telling that the measures specifically target landline phones and people over 60—that is, those most dependent on their home telephone as their primary window to the world. Young people have long communicated via messaging apps — those have not been shut down yet (though, judging by the pace, their turn will come). But the grandmother with a rotary-dial phone in the kitchen — she is now “protected.” In the sense of “protection” that is difficult to distinguish from isolation.

All that remains is to wish the bill’s authors consistency.

If foreign scammers are dangerous — shut down the internet too. If foreign news distorts reality — it has largely been shut down already. If foreign words pollute the language — there are lawmakers with precisely such bills in hand. If foreign air carries unwanted ideas…

We will stop there. The State Duma has no shortage of inspiration as it is.

There is a particular kind of academic ‘stagnation’: when a phenomenon is so vast and so obvious that the scientific apparatus grinds to a halt, not knowing where to begin. The self-isolation of modern Russia is precisely such a case. It has long since gone beyond the concept of a ‘carceral state’ — and even this concept, which until recently seemed a sufficiently broad analytical category, increasingly resembles a pair of clothes that are too tight, worn over something much larger and clumsier.

However, before resorting to mid-level theories, it is worth turning to the classics. Yevgeny Schwartz, in his play ‘To Kill the Dragon’ (1944), depicted a mechanism that is instantly recognisable in modern Russia: The Dragon does not merely set the rules—it sets reality. Windows that look outward are dangerous not because an enemy might enter through them, but because through them the inhabitants might see something the Dragon did not foresee. Therefore — close them. Methodically, systematically, citing regulations.

The digital dimension of this narrative demands separate attention. Over the two decades of the Putin regime, Russia has cultivated the illusion of openness in the digital space — as a kind of safety valve that relieves social pressure. This is the essence of what might be called ‘anesthesia of consumption’: citizens are allowed to read whatever they want — and so they take to the streets less often. When the real pressure became too great, the safety valve was shut off.

On February 20, 2026, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin signed a law requiring telecommunications operators to suspend services at the request of the FSB — without any judicial oversight. Ten days later, the law took effect. Starting March 6, 2026, Moscow residents reported widespread mobile network outages. On March 14, the ‘whitelist’ system was activated — a set of resources accessible during the blackout. The list included: government portals, state-controlled platforms (VK, Yandex), food delivery services, and banking apps. The following were deliberately excluded from the list: independent media, foreign news resources, and any tools for verifying reality.

To paraphrase Schwartz: how many open windows do we have? All of them are open. We don’t know any limits. Well then, we’ll close the open windows. The technical implementation of the dragon’s monologue turned out to be simple and elegant: a person can order a pizza, pay a bill, call a taxi — but cannot find out why the connection is down, what’s happening in the city, or consult with anyone outside official channels. The state does not deprive a person of pizza delivery. It deprives a person of the ability to know that pizza delivery and the FSB are now part of the same infrastructure.

The phenomenology of voluntary isolation is not without its cultural artifacts. In this context, an event that a strict researcher would not even notice takes on particular analytical significance — but one that strikingly and accurately illustrates the mechanism of normalization. On the show “Field of Miracles” (“Channel One”), the children’s vocal ensemble “Komilfo” (Volgograd) performed a song about the benefits of disconnecting from the internet. The young performers — with all the immediacy of a child’s voice — conveyed to the audience that in the absence of blogs and channels, they are forced to play badminton, that this is a “terrible dream,” and at the same time: “We don’t want to, we don’t want to, you won’t catch us in the net, we won’t sit, we won’t sit on your internet”.

This song is, perhaps, the most accurate cultural document of the era. It fully reproduces the Dragon’s logic: truth reformatted as desire. The children aren’t forced — they want the windows closed. They aren’t deprived of the internet — they themselves refuse the network. Normalization is complete when the victim internalizes the restrictions to such an extent that they begin to consider them their own choice. This is the true surgery of control—when the stitched wound leaves no scars.

At the same time, the propaganda pedagogy revealed a characteristic ambivalence: the “terrible dream” in the song’s lyrics is a metaphor specifically for disconnecting from the internet, not for its presence. That is, the children sing about how bad it is without the internet — and at the same time assert that they don’t want to be on it. This contradiction, of course, is not acknowledged by the authors themselves. But it is symptomatic: second-generation propaganda is no longer capable of sustaining even its own internal logic.

The self-isolation of Russian society, thus, is not merely a political fact — it is a performance. The regime enacts the closing of windows, society enacts the enjoyment of darkness, and children sing songs about how the sun was superfluous anyway. If Shvartsovsky’s Dragon were to read contemporary analytical reports, he could only shake his head: why intimidate when you can teach people to love the cage? Why ban windows if you can convince people that they were never open to begin with?

The answer to this question leaves us with a bleak but analytically honest conclusion: the prison state as a concept is already too anthropocentric. It presupposes a prisoner who knows he is a prisoner. Contemporary Russia has gone further — toward a society that perceives bars as an architectural feature and sings children’s songs in their defense. To call this a “prison state” is to underestimate the scale of the phenomenon. To call it a “dystopia” is still to appeal to the reader’s imagination. Perhaps the most accurate name is simply: The Dragon Lives. And the windows are closing.

This article develops the conceptual model of “two-phase authoritarianism,” in which coercion gives way to temptation in the first phase, so that by the second — once society has already been stripped of its means of resistance — the transition to totalitarianism becomes technically and politically feasible. The events of March 2026 in Moscow — the activation of “whitelists” of permitted internet resources during a deliberate shutdown of mobile communications — serve as a marker of that transition.

An important theoretical instrument actively deployed by authoritarian governments to legitimize control over the internet is the concept of “digital sovereignty.” Originally developed in democratic contexts as a safeguard against the monopolistic practices of transnational platforms, it has been repurposed by Russia, China, and kindred regimes to justify the state’s right to shut down, filter, and reshape the information environment. “Sovereign internet,” in this reading, is not a right of citizens to secure communications — it is the state’s right to determine which communications are possible at all.

PHASE ONE: THE SOCIAL CONTRACT OF MANAGED CONSUMPTION

The first stage of the two-phase model spans roughly the first two decades of Vladimir Putin’s rule. It is defined by a specific social contract that can be stated simply: the state does not interfere with consumption — society does not interfere with governance.

The mechanism of this contract is well documented. Oil revenues in the 2000s and early 2010s allowed Russia’s middle class to access Western standards of consumption: shopping malls, foreign travel, smartphones, and streaming services. Simultaneously, independent media, judicial independence, and electoral competition were systematically dismantled — but in a manner calibrated so that the majority of the population did not feel the direct material consequences.

Scholars have termed this phenomenon “welfare authoritarianism” or “pleasure authoritarianism“: a regime that sustains its legitimacy not through ideological mobilization but by ensuring a rising level of consumption. Citizens trade participation in public life for a guarantee of private comfort, and consider the exchange acceptable so long as that comfort persists.

The digital dimension of this contract was fundamental. Russia in the first decade of the century had a comparatively open internet. YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter — all were freely accessible. Blocked sites were marginal in number and in public consciousness. This “internet freedom” functioned as a partial substitute for the real-world freedom that had been quietly removed: people could read what they wished and, therefore, took to the streets less often.

The regime deliberately cultivated the illusion of openness in the digital space — as a pressure valve for social discontent. When real-world pressure grew too acute, the valve was closed. This observation recurs across numerous analyses of the evolution of the Russian internet, and it is accurate.

THE BREAK: FEBRUARY 2022 AND ITS CONSEQUENCES

The full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 shattered this contract on several fronts simultaneously. First, international sanctions and the voluntary withdrawal of Western corporations made consumerist comforts materially unattainable: IKEA, McDonald’s, Apple Pay, Netflix, and Instagram disappeared. Second, mass anti-war protests — the largest in more than a decade — demonstrated that a segment of society was prepared to break the contract even under direct police pressure. Third, and most consequential for our model, the state concluded that as long as a person retains access to uncontrolled information, they remain potentially disloyal.

The initial response was surgical: blocking Instagram and Facebook, throttling Twitter/X, tightening regulations on VPN services. But these measures remained half-hearted — they left people with the practical sense that censorship could technically be circumvented. The systemic shift came later.

On February 20, 2026, Putin signed a law requiring telecommunications operators to suspend services upon instruction from the Federal Security Service. The stated purpose was counterterrorism. The practical function was to give the FSB direct administrative authority to shut down communications in any region of the country, without judicial oversight of any kind. The law took effect ten days after signature.

Beginning March 6, 2026, Moscow residents reported pervasive mobile network outages. According to Forbes, operators received orders to restrict network operations in specific areas of the city. On March 14, 2026, a “whitelist” system was activated — a defined list of resources accessible during the shutdown.

THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE WHITELIST

The composition of the list is analytically revealing. It includes: government services (Gosuslugi, official agency portals); state-controlled information platforms (VKontakte, Odnoklassniki, Yandex); e-commerce services (Ozon, Wildberries, Samokat, Burger King, SDEK, car-sharing); banking applications (Alfa-Bank, VTB, the Mir payment system); and state media (RIA Novosti, Zvezda, Match TV, VGTRK).

Conspicuously absent from the list: any independent or foreign news source; social networks not under state control; messaging applications; and any tool capable of allowing users to verify the actual state of affairs outside official channels.

The architecture of the list follows a coherent and unambiguous logic. This is not a list of resources essential for survival — it is notably lacking, for instance, in medical services or emergency infrastructure. It is a list of controlled existence: a person may order food, pay a bill, call a taxi — but cannot learn why communications are down, what is occurring in the city, or consult with anyone outside official channels.

What we observe, therefore, is not the destruction of comfort but its restructuring: comfort is preserved precisely and only to the degree that it does not threaten control. The state does not deprive a person of pizza delivery — it deprives a person of the ability to know that pizza delivery and the FSB now share the same infrastructure.

PHASE TWO: COMFORT AS INSTRUMENT, NOT COMPENSATION

This is what qualitatively distinguishes the second phase from the first. In the first phase, comfort functioned as compensation — a substitute for freedom. In the second, it becomes an instrument of control: a permitted set of actions within an enclosed space. The difference between a gilded cage and a bare one ceases to matter; what matters is that neither can be exited.

The law of February 20, 2026, is precisely such an act of normalization: it converts ad hoc disconnections — practiced before, but extrajudicially — into a legal procedure. From this point forward, any shutdown of communications is not an act of arbitrary power but the enforcement of law. Legal form does not constrain; it legitimizes.

CONCLUSIONS

The situation described above permits the following theoretical and practical conclusions.

First, twenty-first-century authoritarianism does not merely suppress freedom — it replaces freedom with a simulacrum of well-being. This substitution is not a temporary tactic but a structural element that allows the regime to minimize the costs of overt repression during the first phase.

Second, the transition from the first phase to the second is not an abrupt rupture — it is prepared by the gradual technical, legal, and institutional construction of a control infrastructure. Those who failed to register the first phase find themselves unprepared for the second.

Third, the whitelist of internet resources is not merely a technical solution — it is the concentrated expression of a new social ontology: only what is permitted is real. This represents “information sovereignty” in its most radical and unmediated form.

Fourth, the legal normalization of communications shutdowns is the key step that transforms the extraordinary into the routine. Further comparative analysis of legislative trajectories in states exhibiting similar dynamics is necessary if adequate mechanisms of protection and resistance are to be developed in time.

Pre-war (2013-2021), Ukraine demonstrated consistent crime reduction, reaching a historic low of 321443 registered crimes in 2021, with approximately 50-54% suspect identification rates. The full-scale invasion immediately disrupted this trajectory. By 2025, registered crimes surged to 608191 – an 89% increase from 2021 – while suspect identification plummeted to 27,3%, creating an unprecedented justice gap with over 442000 criminal proceedings lacking identified suspects.

The war fundamentally transformed crime patterns. Criminality became significantly more rural, with rural crime increasing from 20% (2013-2021) to 32,3% (2025) of total crimes. The urban-to-rural crime ratio declined from 4:1 to barely 2:1, reflecting occupation-related crimes, abandoned property theft, and frontline zone criminality.

Crime categories showed varied impacts: property crimes initially decreased but fraud increased dramatically (from 23847 in 2021 to 82609 in 2023). Domestic violence crimes surged (from 4800 in 2021 to 8900 in 2024). War crimes exploded from 253 in 2021 to 62128 in 2022. Intentional homicides with firearms peaked at 909 in 2023 – 25 times the 2021 baseline. Paradoxically, despite weapon proliferation, some firearms crimes showed complex patterns rather than simple increases.

Human trafficking statistics revealed troubling gaps: despite 6,5 million refugees creating unprecedented vulnerability, registered cases remained low (105 in 2024), suggesting severe underreporting and possible law enforcement complicity.

The study demonstrates that while Ukraine maintained statistical transparency during existential crisis, institutional effectiveness collapsed under wartime pressures, creating dangerous impunity that threatens post-war reconstruction and rule of law.

The isolation facility will be located near the 71st kilometre of the M-11 motorway, between the villages of Shapkino and Ozhogino, on a 42.7-hectare plot of land. The complex of buildings with a total area of almost 140,000 square metres will be divided into local, restricted and utility and storage areas. The restricted access zone will have six buildings for men, one for women, as well as separate buildings for individuals with so-called ‘negative tendencies’ and those suffering from tuberculosis. The new detention centre is planned to hold 3,020 men, 400 women (including 24 women with children), 20 minors, 100 persons of ‘negative orientation,’ 68 persons with tuberculosis, up to 12 persons sentenced to life imprisonment, 100 defendants in transit, and up to 280 convicts assigned to maintenance work. The tender for design and survey work was held in March 2023, with the initial design cost estimated at 191 million roubles, but the contract was awarded for 91 million; at the same time, the contractor paid more than 8.5 million roubles in penalties for delays in completion.

The decision to build a new large-scale detention centre should be viewed in the context of general trends in the Russian Federation’s prison system and its connection to the aggressive war against Ukraine. According to World Prison Brief data, Russia’s prison population has shown a steady downward trend over the past two decades: from 1,060,404 people in 2000 (729 per 100,000 population) to 465,896 people in 2022 (322 per 100,000 population).

As of 1 January 2023, the total number of prisoners was 433,006, with an official capacity of 714,253 places in the prison system, i.e. the occupancy rate was only 67%.

Russia had 872 penitentiary institutions, of which 204 were pre-trial detention centres (SIZO), 642 were correctional colonies, 8 were prisons, and 18 were educational colonies for minors.

However, the decline in Russia’s prison population, which Kremlin propaganda tried to present as the result of the ‘humanisation’ of criminal justice, is in fact an artificial trend that has nothing to do with the penitentiary policy of a democratic state. The large-scale ‘emptying’ of Russian prisons was a direct consequence of the recruitment of prisoners to participate in the war against Ukraine. According to a joint investigation by Mediazona and BBC Russian Service (June 2024), the private military company Wagner recruited at least 48,366 people directly from places of detention.

According to estimates by the Ukrainian Foreign Intelligence Service, the total number of convicted prisoners recruited could have been between 140,000 and 180,000.

The Washington Post, citing government statistics and human rights activists, reported that up to 100,000 prisoners had been released and sent to fight.

According to the British Ministry of Defence (March 2023), about half of the prisoners recruited by Wagner were killed or wounded in Ukraine.

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) noted in February 2025 that Russia had virtually exhausted its prison population in 2022–2023 and could no longer generate significant forces from among prisoners.

Thus, the decline in Russia’s prison population is not the result of progressive reforms, but the bloody consequence of using prisoners as ‘cannon fodder’ in the war against Ukraine. Thousands of Russian convicts have been killed on the front lines, particularly during the assaults on Bakhmut, where Wagner convict recruits were used as shock troops in wave attacks against Ukrainian positions. Under the Wagner model, convicts who survived six months of service on the front lines were granted pardons. Many of these released individuals are dangerous criminals, and their return to society is already causing serious concern about an increase in recidivism.

On the other hand, despite the deaths of thousands of prisoners on the front lines, the Russian regime clearly needs new places for its growing prison population.

The construction of a giant 4,000-capacity detention centre in the Moscow region is compelling evidence that the Kremlin leadership is forecasting a significant increase in the number of people held in custody. This forecast is confirmed by several key factors.

First, according to a statement by the head of the Federal Penitentiary Service (March 2025), the number of foreign citizens in the Russian prison system exceeded 30,000, with the majority of them being citizens of CIS countries. Back in December 2023, Russian Minister of Justice Konstantin Chuychenko called this situation ‘a very big problem.’

Second, the return of tens of thousands of pardoned convicts who participated in hostilities to civilian life will inevitably generate a new wave of crime and, accordingly, new prisoners.

Third, the intensification of political repression in Russia — criminal prosecution for ‘discrediting’ the armed forces, for anti-war statements, for ‘fakes’ about the army — creates a constant stream of new political prisoners.

The construction of a new pre-trial detention centre in Solnechnogorsk is also an indicator of the further incarceration of Russian society — a process in which prison logic is increasingly penetrating all spheres of public life. Russia historically remains one of the countries with the highest incarceration rates in the world. Even after the ‘decline’ in the prison population, the rate of 300 people per 100,000 population (World Prison Brief data for early 2023) is many times higher than the median rate for Western European countries (73 per 100,000). According to World Prison Brief data, at the time of the last measurement, Russia’s prison system had an official capacity of 714,253 places, with an actual occupancy rate of only 67%. Nevertheless, instead of using the existing capacity, the state is initiating the construction of a new huge detention centre. This indicates that the authorities expect a large-scale increase in the number of inmates, i.e. persons who are in custody pending trial, which is an indicator of the strengthening of the repressive apparatus.

It should be noted that on 1 January 2023, the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia stopped publishing official statistics on the prison population. The publication of official police crime statistics was also banned. This lack of transparency is a characteristic feature of an authoritarian regime that is trying to hide the real scale of repression and the consequences of using prisoners as cannon fodder.

The independent media outlet Mediazona reported that the Federal Penitentiary Service announced a 17.5% reduction in the prison population since the beginning of 2023, which led to the preparation of a draft order on the possible liquidation of several penitentiary institutions. However, as evidenced by the construction of a new pre-trial detention centre, this trend is temporary, and the regime is preparing for a new wave of mass arrests.

In general, the decision to build one of the largest pre-trial detention centres in Russia against the backdrop of the ongoing war against Ukraine and the mass deaths of prisoners on the front lines is yet another eloquent testimony to the prison-like nature of the Russian state. The regime, which, on the one hand, sends tens of thousands of convicts to their deaths in a foreign country and, on the other, builds new giant detention centres for future victims of repression, demonstrates the profound essence of the Russian imperial project, in which prison has always remained one of the key instruments of social control. The incarceration of Russian society is not diminishing — it is only changing forms, moving from mass imprisonment to mass murder of prisoners of war, and then back to mass imprisonment.

Accordingly, the very fact of the use of physical force, and in a number of cases its excessive use, raises the question of the legality and compliance with international standards of the practice of concealing their faces by TRC employees when carrying out coercive actions.

Here, we can leave aside the legal assessment of the legality of the detention of citizens by TRC employees as such. This issue has been sufficiently researched, and the answer is clear: TRC employees do not have such powers.

Instead, the key aspect is that the very fact of using physical force during the detention of persons transforms the legal status of TRC employees (who are, by their nature, military personnel) into a status functionally identical to that of law enforcement officers, as they effectively assume the relevant law enforcement powers.

In this regard, it is worth noting the provisions of Article 1 of the Code of Conduct for Law Enforcement Officials, adopted by Resolution 34/169 of the UN General Assembly on December 17, 1979, according to which the term “law enforcement officials” covers all appointed or elected officials who exercise police powers, including the power to arrest or detain. Thus, when a TRC employee, while in the status of a military serviceman, resorts to detention with the use of physical force, this indicates that he has effectively assumed the powers of law enforcement officials within the meaning of the aforementioned international act, which, in turn, raises questions both about the legality of such actions and about legal responsibility for them.

At the same time, in the context of preventing torture and inhuman treatment, given the practice of detentions carried out by TRC employees, the standards of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) are of particular importance. The relevant CPT standards contain an unambiguous requirement: every state agent — regardless of their institutional affiliation (police officer, prison service officer, or other state official) — who exercises powers to detain persons is required to wear clear and unambiguous means of identification. Such means may include an individual number, surname, or appropriate markings on the uniform or protective equipment (in particular, a helmet).

In cases where officials perform their duties wearing balaclavas or helmets that cover their faces, the relevant identification numbers must be of sufficient size to ensure the unimpeded identification of the specific official exercising the power of detention and using physical force.

Thus, even if the actions of TRC employees in detaining citizens are illegal in nature, the obligation to have clear and unambiguous means of identification on uniforms remains relevant and important. Compliance with this requirement is a necessary prerequisite for ensuring the prompt identification of a specific individual who has used force and, where there are grounds for doing so, bringing them to justice.

Here we would like to recall certain ECHR standards regarding the wearing of balaclavas by law enforcement officers.

The CPT would also like to express its misgivings about the practice of law enforcement officials wearing masks when apprehending persons […] since this will hamper the identification of those responsible if and when instances of ill-treatment arise. The Committee considers that only exceptional circumstances can justify measures to conceal the identity of law enforcement officials [carrying out their duties]. Where such measures are applied, appropriate safeguards must be in place in order to ensure that the officials concerned are accountable for their actions (e.g. by means of a clearly visible number on the uniform) (Estonia, 2007, para 15).

The CPT considers that appropriate safeguards must be in place in order to ensure that police officers may be identified and can be held accountable for their actions (e.g. by way of a clearly visible means of individual identification on the uniform, such as a name or a number). This concerns in particular those police officers wearing masks/balaclavas or other equipment that may hamper their identification. Such a requirement is also likely to have a preventive effect and significantly reduce the risk of excessive use of force and other forms of ill-treatment (Austria, 2021, para 19).

The wearing of balaclavas (in addition to protective helmets) by members of specialised forces may exceptionally be justified in the context of high-risk operations (for instance, when dangerous arrests are necessary). However, the routine wearing of balaclavas during public order operations should be seriously reconsidered. Further, any pre-planned interventions should be videorecorded (e.g. with tactical cameras as part of the equipment of the officers concerned). Action must also be taken to ensure that plainclothes law enforcement officials effecting an apprehension and/or questioning an apprehended person in the context of public order operations clearly identify themselves (including by giving evidence of their status and professional identity as soon as is practicable) (Ukraine, February 2014, para 36).

The practical arrangements in place, in particular the display of a number on the back of helmets, did not generally allow persons apprehended in the context of the demonstrations to identify the law enforcement officials involved in their arrest. The CPT recommends that the  authorities take measures to ensure that all police officers involved in public order operations, whether they wear personal protection equipment or not, display a clearly visible means of individual identification (such as a name or a number) on the front of their uniforms or helmets (Türkiye, April 2025, para 36).

The Committee recommends that steps be taken to ensure that prison staff are always identifiable, preferably by wearing name tags [or short] identification numbers in a visible manner at all times whilst on duty (Hungary, 2013, para. 49).

The CPT also wishes to emphasise that it is opposed to the wearing of balaclavas by special-purpose forces within penitentiary establishments. The Committee recognises that, for operational and/or security reasons, the wearing of protective helmets may be necessary. However, it should be ensured that subsequent identification of the officers concerned is always possible by the relevant authorities and by prisoners through not only a clearly distinctive badge but also a prominent identification number on each uniform/helmet. In addition, interventions of this type should be videorecorded (e.g. with tactical cameras as part of the equipment of the penitentiary officers concerned) (Ukraine, 2012, para 21).

Further, in the context of border control activities at both land and sea borders, all law enforcement officials or state agents involved should display clearly visible identification numbers or tags on their uniforms. There can be no justification for balaclavas to be systematically worn. Border control activities should also be video recorded to prevent both ill-treatment and false accusations and be systematically monitored. In this regard, the authorities should guarantee the operation of effective and independent monitoring mechanisms for systematically monitoring border control activities (Greece, 2023, para 162).