Novaya Gazeta reported the new disciplinary action, saying it was prompted by "minor violations": Berkovich did not put her hands behind her back quickly enough, tied her headscarf incorrectly and failed to make her bed on time. She will spend 15 days in the punishment cell.
Novaya Gazeta separately noted that Berkovich is not receiving the medication she needs while in isolation. The colony explained this by saying the doctor who is supposed to write the prescription is on leave. Berkovich had already complained about the lack of medication and about relatives being barred from passing it to her while she was in pre-trial detention.
Berkovich and playwright Svetlana Petriychuk were arrested in May 2023 over the play "Finist, the Brave Falcon," a production about women who married ISIS fighters and moved to Syria. Investigators concluded the play contained signs of justifying terrorism. Both pleaded not guilty.
In July 2024, the Second Western District Military Court sentenced Berkovich and Petriychuk to six years in a penal colony. An appeal later reduced Berkovich's term by five months and Petriychuk's by two. In February 2025, Berkovich was transferred to Penal Colony No. 3 in the Kostroma region, and in August the Supreme Court upheld the sentence.
On Saturday, Novaya Gazeta editor-in-chief and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Dmitry Muratov commented on the fate of political prisoners. Speaking on CNN, he urged US presidential special envoys Steven Witkoff and Jared Kushner to raise the issue of Russian political prisoners in talks with the Russian authorities and to facilitate prisoner exchanges between Russia and Western countries. He mentioned Berkovich among them.